Organised labour has declared a strike beginning Monday night citing delay in the payment of cash palliatives promised by the Federal Government.
Labour is miffed by the non-payment of N35,000 promised workers for October and November.
A strike notice by the Nigerian Labour Congress, NUC, and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, sited by Credible News directed workers to down tools by midnight, Monday, 18 December.
The notice issued by Labour read: “NLC/ TUC Nationwide Strike Action. In furtherance to the decision of the Joint National Executive Council, NEC, of NLC and TUC, all workers in Nigeria are hereby directed to withdraw their services effective 12.00 midnight of 18th December, 2023.”
The document was issued by Comrade Emmanuel Ugboaja and and Comrade Nuhu Toro, secretaries of NLC and TUC respectively.
Last Tuesday, TUC had kicked against government’s failure to sustain the payment of the N35,000 monthly wage award to workers in the public sector.
President of the TUC, Comrade Festus Osifo told journalists after its National Executive Council meeting in Abuja, that the civil servants only received the pay for the month of September.
Recalled that President Bola Tinubu had in October, 2023 announced the amount for Nigerian workers, beginning from September 1st to reduce the hardship occasioned by fuel subsidy removal.
But Osifo criticised government for the bottlenecks in the N35,000 monthly wage award promised to workers.
TUC also kicked against the debt-to-revenue based in the national budget submitted by the President to the National Assembly, saying the budget was based on a deficit that was not matched by the national revenue, and that the government was borrowing too much to finance its expenditure.
The congress called on the government to address the issue of tax revenue and reduce government wasteful spending at all levels.
“On the issue of a wage award, it is on record that a payment has been made just once. As we speak now, our members in the federal civil service have not received the wage award since October.
“We wish to call on government to fast track all the processes. We learned that they are currently putting some things in place to pay this money but our people are not ready to listen to excuses.
“All we want is that this money should keep hitting the account of our members until the new minimum wage is put in place.
“We thank them for the once that they have done, but they have ceased doing it for a couple of months, so we call on government to remove all the bottlenecks that are being experienced today regarding the wage award and to continuously pay this sum.
“I will also wish to call out the respective state government to do the same. For the state governments that have agreed to pay the 35,000 Naira wage award, we say kudos to them.
“For those who have also agreed to do something close to N35,000, we say we are welcoming that but for all those who are running away from paying these amounts or from providing any palliative to our members, they are only postponing the evil days because when the people are hungry, then at the end of the day, it increased the level of crime in society because people will keep looking for what’s to eat.
“So we call on all state governments, including the Minister of FCT, to make provision of this sort for all Nigeria workers.
“Similarly, we also encourage aII those in the private sector to follow suit to provide succour to the people that are laying the golden eggs.” Osifo said
On the huge indebtedness of the country, Osifo said: “As we have constantly stated, we are sceptical and worried by these states of our debt because our debt is continuously increasing. And this has put a huge burden on us.
“This year’s budget is also a deficit budget and is the level of borrowing is growing on a daily basis and the amount of money we require to keep servicing this debt is growing on a daily basis in such a way that the amount of money we require to service debt is almost catching up with our national revenue, and this is problematic.
“While we are always told that the debt to GDP ratio is quite accommodating. Yes, that is true, but the debt to revenue is worrisome,” said the TUC president.
