NLC kicks against FG palliative package, says Tinubu becoming dictatorial

Fresh trouble appears in the offing between the labour and the Federal Government over the palliative package the latter announced for the poor and the humongous funds allocated to the National Assembly members.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Tuesday accused the Bola Tinubu-led administration of threading the path of dictatorship in unilaterally deciding the palliative amount to be allocated to the masses, federal lawmakers and the judiciary.

Tinubu last week wrote a letter to the National Assembly seeking approval of an $800 million loan to be disbursed to 12 million households in the portion of N8,000 each, designed to cushion the effect of removal of fuel subsidy.

Reacting to this palliative, NLC President, Joe Ajaero, in a press release, on Tuesday, said the Federal Government was already using dictatorship style to impoverish Nigerians.

He also condemned the latest hike in fuel price and warned that the labour could be forced to “take matters into our own hands” if the government failed to retrace its steps.

Ajaero further said the FG did not consider the plight of the Nigerian workers before making the decision on the palliative.

He said, “We have restrained ourselves from making further comments publicly on the vexatious issues around the recent but unfortunate unilateral hike in the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in the guise of the so-called subsidy withdrawal which has unleashed predictably as we had earlier warned unimaginable and unprecedented hardship, sorrow, anguish and suffering upon Nigerian workers and masses.

“Our resolve is anchored on our strong and abiding faith in the outcomes of the processes of social dialogue and its mechanisms, especially within a democratic setting which fortunately all the major stakeholders in the nation’s socioeconomic framework pleads to at this particular point in time though some have demonstrably shown that it does not go deeper than the rhetoric.

“However, the government of Nigeria seems to have been misled into believing that resorting to impunity and imperiousness in governance in a democracy is a beneficial option as it pursues its stated and unstated objectives.”

He recalled, “The Federal Government had called for dialogue in the aftermath of its disastrous forlorn trajectory in the astronomical increase in petroleum product price and our subsequent call for a nationwide industrial action.

“We were also witnesses to the actions of the Federal Government in procuring an unholy injunction from the courts which were served us in Gestapo style by trucks laden with fully armed soldiers and policemen.

“In all of these provocations, we remained committed to the principles of the Rule of Law, good conscience and democracy so that we can continue to be the moral compass for leaders in the public space.

“This explained our decision to suspend action on the proposed strike.”

Ajaero said, “As it stands, rather than reciprocate the goodwill of Nigerian workers, the Federal Government has insisted on threading the path of dictatorship and seeking to impoverish the people further by taking steps that can only be described as robbing the (poor) people of Nigeria to pay and feed the rich.

“It is on this basis that the NLC strongly condemns the decision of the Tinubu-led administration to seek the approval of the National Assembly to obtain another tranche of external loans worth N500b from the World Bank for the purposes of carrying out a phantom palliative measure to cushion the effect of its poorly thought-out hike in the prices of Premium Motor Spirit.

“Remember that the $800 million which was already proposed before the devaluation of the Naira by this government was worth about N400 billion then but is now worth about N650 billion after devaluation.

“It is from this, it proposes to bring out N500 billion for distribution.

“The proposal to pay N8,000 to each of the so-called 12 million poorest Nigerian households for a period of six months insults our collective intelligence and makes a mockery of our patience and abiding faith in social dialogue which the government may have alluded to albeit pretentiously.

“The further proposal to pay National Assembly members the sum of N70 billion and the Judiciary N36bn is the most insensitive, reckless and brazen diversion of our collective patrimony into the pockets of public officers whose sworn responsibility it is to protect our nation’s treasury.

“We believe that this may amount to hush money and outright bribery of the other arms of government to acquiesce the aberration.

“It is unconscionable that a government that has foisted so much hardship on the people within nearly two months of coming into office will make a proposal that clearly rewards the rich in public office to the detriment of the poor.

“What this means all this while is that the government is seeking ways of robbing the very poor Nigerians so that the rich can become richer.

“There is no other way to explain the proposal to pay a misery sum of N8,000 Naira to each of the mysterious poorest 12 million Households for six months which amounts to N48,000 and pay just 469 National Legislators N70bn or about N149m each while the Judiciary that has about 72 Appeal Court Judges, 33 National Industrial Court Judges, 75 Federal High Court Judges and 21 Supreme Court Judges and a total of about 201 Judges receives a total of N35b or N174m each.

“If these other two arms are projected to receive this, what members of the Executive Council will receive is better left to the imagination of Nigerians. Perhaps, the balance of N150bn will go to them.

“These proposals are not just unacceptable to Nigerian workers but are also dictatorial and thus undemocratic.

“It is not a product of social dialogue which would have produced collectively negotiated outcomes by critical national stakeholders.”

The labour leader also queried the often quoted 12 million Nigerians as poorest households.

He stated, “We reiterate that we do not have confidence in how the data for the never changing 12m poorest households was generated neither do we have confidence in the mechanisms being pursued for the distribution of the cash transfers.

“The history of such transfers especially the school feeding programmes even while the children were at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Trader Moni saga fills Nigerians with trepidation, reminding us of the continued heist of our collective resources by those in public office.”

“If the government does not want to stop these fortuitous actions that it is pursuing in the name of palliatives, we will be forced to constructively review our engagement with the government on this vexatious issue and take matters into our own hands,” Ajero stated.