Nigeria in Despair
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President Bola Tinubu scraps the $10 cash payment to 12 million of the poorest families as organised labour rejects the meagre palliative
The Nigerian president has scrapped the proposed N8000 conditional cash payment to 12 million poor families affected by the fuel subsidy removal, following outcry from organised labour.
On Tuesday, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) issued a press statement signed by its President Joe Ajaero in which he stated that workers have rejected the N8000 cash payment and accused the Tinubu administration of inflicting “unimaginable and unprecedented hardship, sorrow, anguish and suffering upon Nigerian workers and masses.”
Following the abrupt hike in fuel prices the NLC said “the federal government has insisted on threading the path of dictatorship and 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.”
Ajaero condemned the N500b World Bank loan from which the paltry sum of N8000 would be paid while questioning the huge palliative pay to the legislative and judicial branches where a legislator will pocket N149 million while each judge gets N179 million.
“What members of the Executive Council will receive is better left to the imagination of Nigerians perhaps, the balance N150b will go to them.” Ajaero stated.
Reacting to the threat from Nigerian workers to take matters into their own hands, the Presidency immediately authorised the immediate release of fertilisers and grains to approximately 50 million farmers and households across the country following the scrap of the cash payment.
Dele Alake the presidential spokesman confirmed saying the move was to alleviate the sufferings Nigerians were experiencing from the low value of the Naira and the hike in fuel prices.
Alake also said the scrapping of the cash payment is in “deference to the views expressed by Nigerians against it.”
Tinubu further reassured Nigerians that the approved N500 billion for cushioning the effects of subsidy removal will be utilised judiciously. He said the relief beneficiaries will encompass Nigerians from all ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds.
($1-N820)
Akowe with reports from Abuja
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