The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has rejected the palliatives proposed by the Federal Government to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government proposed to give 12 million households from the poorest of the poor N8,000 monthly for six months as a government palliative to reduce the discomfort being experienced due to the subsidy removal.
However, NLC President, Joe Ajaero, in a statement on Tuesday, described this move as robbing the people of Nigeria to pay and feed the rich and insultitive the collective intelligence of Nigerians.
He argued that the Federal Government was “seeking to impoverish the people further by taking steps that can only be described as robbing the 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 to carry out a phantom palliative measure to cushion the effect of its poorly thought-out hike in the prices of Premium Motor Spirit.”
“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 N70b and the Judiciary N36b 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.
‘’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 pays just 469 National Legislators N70b 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 receive 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 N150b will go to them.”
According to him, the actions of the federal government show that it does not have trust and confidence in the Presidential Committee set up to take a comprehensive look at the consequences of the Petroleum Product price hike and make recommendations on the way forward to ameliorate its negative impacts upon the citizenry.
“NLC would not want to continue to be part of the usual charade of Committees with outcomes that are never implemented.
We would not want to waste the time of Nigerians especially workers on Committees that have already been programmed to fail and thus ignored. We do not want to provide a cover for the government to get away with the hardship it has imposed on the people. We do not want to legitimize impunity,” he added.
Meanwhile, President Bola Ahmed, on Tuesday, directed the immediate review of the 8,000 palliatives as well as unveiling the whole gamut of a palliative package of the government to the citizens.
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