The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) lambasted the Federal Government’s (FG) intention to distribute ₦500 billion as palliatives to Nigerians and government personnel to mitigate the consequences of the elimination of gasoline subsidies on Tuesday.
In a statement issued on Tuesday by its President, Joe Ajaero, the NLC claimed that the Federal Government was “seeking to impoverish the people further by taking steps that can only be described as robbing the people of Nigeria to pay and feed the Rich.”
“It is on this basis that the NLC strongly condemns the decision of the Tinubu-led administration to seek the approval of the National Assembly to obtain another tranche of external loans worth N500b from the World Bank to carry out a phantom palliative measure to cushion the effect of its poorly thought-out hike in the prices of Premium Motor Spirit,” it said.
The organization in Nigeria noted that the $800 million already proposed prior to the government’s currency devaluation was worth around ₦400 billion, but had climbed to about ₦650 billion post-devaluation.
“It is from this, it proposes to bring out N500b for distribution,” it added.
“The proposal to pay N8,000 to each of the so-called 12 million poorest Nigerian households for six months insults our collective intelligence and makes a mockery of our patience and abiding faith in social dialogue which the government may have alluded to albeit pretentiously.”
According to the NLC, the additional proposal to pay N70 billion to National Assembly members and N36 billion to the judiciary is “the most insensitive, reckless, and brazen diversion of our collective patrimony into the pockets of public officers whose sworn responsibility it is to protect our nation’s treasury.”
The labor organization expressed worry that the measure amounted to “hush money” and “outright bribery” of other branches of government to “acquiesce in the aberration.”
It condemned the idea of a government that had imposed “so much hardship” on the people within roughly two months of taking office making a “unconscionable” proposition that rewarded the wealthy in public office at the expense of the poor.
“What this means all this while is that the government is seeking ways of robbing the very poor Nigerians so that the rich can become richer,” it added.
“There is no other way to explain the proposal to pay a misery sum of N8,000 Naira to each of the mysterious poorest 12 million Households for six months which amounts to N48,000 and pays just 469 National Legislators N70b or about N149m each while the Judiciary that has about 72 Appeal Court Judges, 33 National Industrial Court Judges, 75 Federal High Court Judges and 21 Supreme Court Judges and a total of about 201 Judges receive a total of N35b or N174m each.
“If these other two arms are projected to receive this, what members of the Executive Council will receive is better left to the imagination of Nigerians perhaps, the balance of N150b will go to them.”
