By Johnbosco Agbakwuru
The Federal Government on Tuesday pleaded with the Organised Labour to suspend the proposed strike on Wednesday, saying that government is doing everything to ensure that the hardship occasioned by the petrol subsidy removal is sorted out.
But the organised labour has said that the palliatives rolled out by the President in his nationwide broadcast on Monday night is very insignificant to cushion the effect of sufferings in the country.
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, specifically said it was going on with the proposed national protest on Wednesday.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the Presidential Steering Committee on Palliatives held at the State House, Abuja, the Chief of Staff to the President, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, appealed to the organised labour to suspend the planned protest.
He said, “We have laid out the plans, the interventions of Mr. President, as you all heard in his broadcast yesterday, we made it clear that this was just Mr. President’s initial rollout and interventions and that conversations will be ongoing as we go along.
“And we appealed to Labour, we did appeal to labour to call off the protests for tomorrow. We found listening ears here and they did agree that they all accepted that Mr. President’s broadcast was a welcome development and that they will go back home to talk to the other leaders that are not present today. So we’re hopeful that they will do the right thing and call off the strike tomorrow.”
However, the NLC led by its Deputy President, Comrade Titus Amba said that there was nothing new apart from the broadcast of President Bola Tinubu that was presented to the committee, adding that the palliatives as rolled out by the President in his broadcast cannot remedy anything.
Source: Vanguard
