The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has objected to President Bola Tinubu’s request for National Assembly approval to obtain another tranche of external loans worth N500 billion from the World Bank in order to carry out a palliative measure to mitigate the impact of the increase in Premium Motor Spirit prices.
The NLC also stated that the proposal to pay N8,000 to each of Nigeria’s 12 million poorest households for a six-month period was an insult to the citizens’ collective intelligence and made a mockery of Nigerians’ patience and steadfast faith in social dialogue, which the government may have alluded to, albeit pretentiously.
It went on to say that the proposal to pay N70 billion to National Assembly members and N36 billion to the judiciary was the most insensitive, reckless, and brazen diversion of the nation’s 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 branches of government to allow the aberration to continue.” NLC declared victory.
On Monday, the Congress issued a statement signed by its President, Joseph Ajaero. According to Ajaero, the plans are not only undesirable to Nigerian workers, but also totalitarian and undemocratic.
He regretted that, rather than reciprocating Nigerian workers’ generosity, the federal government kept on treading the path of dictatorship and sought to further impoverish the people by taking acts that could only be defined as stealing the people of Nigeria to pay and feed the Rich.
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