The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has declared a two-day warning strike, beginning on Tuesday, September 5, in protest against the Federal Government for failing to address the challenges caused by the removal of fuel subsidy.
The NLC President, Joe Ajaero, made the declaration on Friday during a press conference at the Labour House in Abuja, while speaking on resolutions by the NLC National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting the previous day.
During the inaugural address of President Bola Tinubu on May 29, he announced that the petrol subsidy regime was over.
The pronouncement immediately led to a hike in the pump price of petrol, a quadrupling of transportation costs in certain areas, and ballooning inflation across several market segments.
On August 2, the NLC and affiliate unions staged nationwide protests against the removal of the subsidy on petrol and the attendant hardship on Nigerians, after issuing a seven-day ultimatum to the federal government to reverse all “anti-poor” and “insensitive” policies.
After the protests, leaders of the labour unions met with President Tinubu at the State House in Abuja.
The president has however insisted that his economic reforms are bitter pills that the people must swallow at this time.
“We have gone through the past. I will not look back. The focus of my horse and my race remains forward-looking,” Tinubu told members of the board and management of the National Economic Summit Group (NESG) on Thursday.
The federal government has announced the distribution of palliatives to states in a bid to cushion the impact of the petrol subsidy removal policy on Nigerians.
The hardship and spiraling inflation are yet to abate, however.
