1st September, 2023
The Nigeria Labour Congres (NLC) on Friday declared two-day warning strike beginning from Tuesday, September 5 over what it described as the failure of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to proffer solutions to challenges caused by removal of fuel subsidy.
Joe Ajaero, the President on the NLC announced the decision of the union to go on strike at a press conference at the Labour House in Abuja.
According to Ajaero, the decision was to go on the warning strike was part of the resolutions reached at the NLC National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held on Thursday.
The NLC President had accused the Federal Government of failure to implement some of the resolutions from their previous meetings.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and their affiliate unions had on 2 August held a nationwide protest over what it described as the anti-people policies of President’s Tinubu’s administration.
However, the protest was called off after the intervention of the President.
President Tinubu had in his inauguration speech on 29, May, 2023 announced removal of fuel subsidy, an action which resulted in jump of the price of petrol from less that N200 per litre across the country to over N500 per litre, leading to threats of industrial action and call for rversal of the price increase by the NLC and the other labour unions.
However, the government sets up a team to negotiate with the unions on how to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal. The unions, had among others demanded the introduction of new minimum wage to mitigate the consequential impact of this removal of subsidy.
But as the negotiation with between the labour unions and the NLC was going on, petroleum marketers on 19 July again jacked up the price of petrol to N617 and above across the country.
This led to the August 2 protest by the NLC and its affiliate unions and the meeting with the President.
The President of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, Festus Osifo and Ajaero were at the meeting with the President held at the Presidential Villa .
They told journalists after the meeting that the President made some commitments to address some issues they raised about removal of fuel subsidy.
However, the Tinubu administration has been supporting state government with palliatives to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal.