The two-day protests led by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over the hunger and hardships triggered by the various reforms introduced by the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will not continue today Wednesday even though it recorded nationwide relative success at day one as the NLC suspended further street protest.
But in spite of the subtle threat by the federal government and its effort to discourage the organised labour from going ahead with the plan, workers defied every hurdle in their way and trooped out en mass.
But a State-by-State situation report of the protest rallies proved a relative success overall, even though the turnout in some States did not do justice to the intention of the rallies.
Nonetheless, President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, declared the street protests a huge success, urging the federal government to urgently address hunger and economic hardship in the country.
In a communique at the end of a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of NLC held in Abuja on Wednesday night, the Congress said that after reviewing the first day of the protest, it decided to suspend street action for the second day of the protest.
This, it claimed, followed the success recorded at day one, and by extension, attained the key objectives of the second day protest on the first day.
The communique signed by Ajaero and the Acting General Secretary, Comrade Ismail Bello, expressed appreciation to Nigerian workers and masses for sending a strong message to “the powers-that-be” on their united resolve to demand accountability from them.
The NLC communique read: ”The NEC-in-session therefore reviewed the execution of the first day of the nationwide protest to assess its effectiveness and take decision on further necessary action to guide Congress in its effort at engaging government to protect the people and Nigerian workers from the increasing scourge of hardship.
“To this end, NEC commended Nigerians, all NLC affiliates, state Councils, Workers and Civil Society Allies across the Nation for trooping out in large numbers to peacefully demonstrate their outrage on the hardship imposed by the government and its twin altars – the IMF and the World Bank.
“It believed that the message has strongly resonated. Consequently, NEC-in-session resolved as follows:
“To suspend street action for the second day of the Protest having achieved overwhelming success thus attained the key objectives of the 2-day protest on the first day.
“However, nationwide action continues tomorrow with simultaneous Press Conferences across all the states of the federation by the state Councils of the Congress including the National Headquarters.
“To reaffirm and extend the 7-days ultimatum by another 7 days, which now expires on the 13th day of March, 2024 within which the government is expected to implement all the earlier agreement of the 2nd day of October, 2023 and other demands presented in our letter during today’s nationwide protest.
“To meet and decide on further lines of action if on the expiration of the 14 days government refuses to comply with the demands as contained in the ultimatum.
“Once again, NEC recommits the NLC to continuing defending and promoting the interests and desires of Nigerian workers and the downtrodden masses.”
But the Federal Government, which has been wooing Nigerians against NLC and the strike said it was already attending to the demands of the organised Labour, saying that the protest was not about the agreement it has with the workers, but about hunger in the land.
“This protest is not about the agreement we had with the NLC. The body during our meeting on Sunday agreed that we have performed.
“But they insisted that the protest would go on due to increasing hunger in the land. One of the agenda of Mr. President is food security, Labour and Employment Minister Nkeiruka Onyejeocha.
Onyejeocha, who spoke on national television, explained that the government has fulfilled 90 per cent of the agreement it reached with the organised labour.
She added: “The truth of the matter is that Nigeria and our government are in the planting season; we have performed on the agreements we signed with Labour in October last year.
“We’ve delivered on the wage award and had paid up till January. February has not ended. We have inaugurated a minimum wage committee as agreed.
“For me, Labour is just being Labour and they have to show sympathy to Nigerians that there is hunger in the land.
“ I’m saying that the time we are in is very precarious. This is a time when everybody should show patriotism and everybody should be on the same page.”
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, described the protest as needless.
Ngelale said during a television interview that the Federal Government has already commenced efforts to alleviate the hardship in the country.
