The NLC President, Joe Ajaero has described as illogical any report to the effect that the Labour Congress has withdrawn from the planned national anti-hunger protest, pointing out that, in reality, NLC cannot withdraw from a protest it has not organised.
Disclosing that the NLC had been inundated with allegations of the Congress’s withdrawal from the national protest, Ajaero said: “A news report of the withdrawal of the Nigeria Labour Congress from the widely discussed national protest has been brought to our attention. The Nigeria Labour Congress debunks such story as patently false.”
According to the NLC leader, “it is only the organisers of the speculated national protest that can decide to pull out or continue with the protest.”Â
Ajaero said that the NLC has internal trade union mechanisms, especially leadership decision-making processes, that its industrial actions such as protests pass through before such activities are undertaken.
He however explained that the fact that the Nigeria Labour Congress is not the body organising the protest does not mean that Organised Labour is oblivious of the dire living conditions Nigerians have been subjected to by the harsh economic policies of government, declaring that the “Nigeria Labour Congress stands in solidarity with the Nigerian people in these very trying and excruciating times.”
Ajaero disclosed that what they in the Labour movement has done in relation to the planned is that they have called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to invite the leaders of the protest movement for a dialogue on their demands.Â
“We have advised that it would be counter-productive for government to meet the widespread anger in the land with brute force,” he warned, imploring the federal government and others to listen to the cries of the Nigerian people and do the needful.
“After all, it is said that the voice of the people is the voice of God,” he surmised.
