- By Kamil Opeyemi
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has faulted the Federal Government’s palliatives following the removal of subsidy on petroleum.
While the Federal Government had months back removed subsidy on the commodity, it gave food palliatives to state governments for onward distribution to Nigerians. It also gave N5bn to them.
But hours after declaring a two-day nationwide strike owing to the impacts of fuel subsidy removal, the labour chief described the palliatives as “mere tokenism”, maintaining they cannot cushion the impacts of the subsidy removal policy.
He added that the distribution of food palliatives is inadequate to combat the effects of the government’s move.
He said: “If you share that N5bn or even the five trucks of rice or grain, many people may not get one or half cup of rice.
“If you share the N5bn, many people, probably within the working class or the poor of the poor, may not get N1,500. Now, is that the palliative?
“When you do it, you reduce us to mere tokenism – maybe give us N10,000 for three months and leave people to die. That is not the issue.
“We have to sit down and look at some measures that would cushion the effects or that would substitute the suffering of Nigerians. So, by the time you say you are giving state governors N5bn each, what does that translate to if they share it?”
Speaking further, Ajaero said the federal government has institutionalised the “attitude of sharing money” instead of thinking outside the box.
“We can think outside the box. But when people appropriate to themselves the monopoly of knowledge then those are the kind of challenges we are going to continue to face.
“When we have institutionalised the attitude of sharing money then that is where we are,” he said
“That money is not for us (labour unions). We are negotiating with the government. We are trying to look at the effects of the subsidy removal and we have not arrived at N5 billion for you to share N1,000 to people.
“If the government is giving money to the state governors to share, that is not within the mandate we have in terms of negotiating with the Nigerian government.
“We should not bother ourselves with this issue of the federal government giving state governments N5 billion.
“Is N5 billion for palliative? That N5 billion, we don’t know what it is all about. There was no conversation around that N5 billion.
He, however, said, that if the money budgeted for the palliatives was put into the public transport system, the people would be better for it.
“For every day a worker moves from his house to the office and comes back with a reduced transportation rate, he may save N1,000 daily,” he argued.
“If he tries that for 28 days or even 20 days, he may be saving about N20,000 on transportation alone. That’s a policy. That would help even the farmer who moves his goods and services from one point to the other,” he added