Bauchi Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has dismissed as “fable and rhetorical satire” the assurance of elements of surprise promised by President Bola Tinubu in his 2023 Independence Day celebration broadcast coming up on Sunday, 1st October 2023.
The State Chairman of the NLC, Dauda Shaibu while fielding questions from journalists on Thursday at the NUJ Press Centre, said that there would be no elements of positive surprise in the broadcast as being taunted by Presidential aides.
He declared that the only thing expected from the broadcast is “deceit, lies and fables” that will vanish as they are said by the President.
According to him, “The only elements of suprise will additional burdens on Nigerians, because that is what the administration has been doing since May 29th, 2023 when it came onboard. We are not expecting any form of positive suprise. I challenge the President to prove me wrong for the first time.”
He stressed; “What positive surprise are you expecting from the administration that has told lies about the welfare of workers since its coming? If they had intention of doing something good and positive, they would have done that. We are not expecting anything positive from the Broadcast. Let’s wait and see on Sunday.”
The NLC Chairman who was flanked by the TUC and NULGE Chairmen declared that NLC has the strong backing of all stakeholders in ensuring a complete lockdown of the entire country while the proposed strike action will last.
All Nigerians are going to the same market, buying petrol at the same price, therefore, everybody is feeling the pains of the fuel subsidy removal. The farmers cannot go to the farm because of the hike in price. We are in the struggle together.
“As you can see, NURTW is here, RTEAN is here, Civil Service Union is here. Every labour stakeholders are here. In sha Allah, we will succeed in the struggle,” he added.
Reminded that most of the time, it has been Federal Civil Servants that do enjoy the largesse of the strikes, the NLC Chairman assured that it will be a different ball game this time around plans have been made to ensure that workers at the state and private sector enjoyed the positive outcome of the strike action.
On the N5 billion palliative measures given to all the states by the Federal Government, he described it as “grossly inadequate and a laughing matter which cannot alleviate any suffering of the people”.
According to him, “In Bauchi state for example, the population is not fewer than 8 million people. You can divide the amount with the population, it will give about N700 which is not even enough to buy fuel. You can see that it is nothing but a deceit.”
On the distribution of palliatives in the State, he assured that workers have been given their own shares of the items as well as money set aside for payment of pension and gratuities for both state and local government retirees.
According to him, the committee is working round the clock to ensure even distribution of the items as modalities are been worked out.