The Nigeria Labour Congress said on Thursday that President Bola Tinubu betrayed organised labour, using the price of Premium Motor Spirit, commonly called petrol, as bait.
According to organized labor, President Tinubu gave them the choice not to raise the price of gasoline during the negotiations that resulted in their acceptance of N70,000.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said this during the opening of a two-day workshop in Lagos titled “Minimum Wage Implementation Workshop, Southern Zone.”
Ajaero claimed that accusations of “cybercrime, financing terrorism, sponsoring terrorism and the rest” were attempts to divert the labor movement’s focus.
Ajaero urged the government to act quickly to address the urgent problems of hunger, poverty, and frustration affecting Nigerians, pointing out that the benefits of the national minimum wage of N70,000 have been undermined by the current cost of gasoline.
Prior to the N70,000 minimum wage being accepted, Ajaero recalled speaking with President Tinubu. According to Ajaero, Tinubu gave the option to accept the N70,000 wage without any additional increases in fuel prices.
He added that alternatively, the president had given them a choice between accepting a higher wage of N250,000 and an increase in the pump price of fuel.
Ajaero said the labour movement opted for the choice of N70,000 considering the plight that further increases in fuel price would have on the masses should labour settle for a wage of N250,000.
“There is a tactic to distract our attention, to call us names, level allegations against us over cybercrime, financing terrorism, sponsoring terrorism and the rest.
“Those things have paid off because while we are facing those allegations, this issue of pump price has remained.
“I repeat, we were betrayed by Mr President, That statement we issued over our being betrayed is being denied by officials of the government. I am repeating it that we were betrayed. Some of you here were at the meeting when Mr President said, Ajaero you are the problem,” he said.
Ajaero quoted President Tinubu to have said “Since we said subsidy is gone. You don’t want to allow us to increase again. If you allow me to increase we will pay you that N250, 000.”
He continued “The president said I am giving you one hour to decide on this and get back to me. He stated that we should make a decision regarding the N250,000 minimum wage and the increase in gas prices before he returns to his office.
“We said no sir, Mr President; we can’t be holding our meeting here in your office. Let us take one one-week break and come back and report back to you.
“He said okay, I am travelling but I will cancel my trip for one week. That was how we adjourned for one week.
“If you followed the trend of those negotiations, we adjourned for one week. And when we came back after consultations, we said to Mr President, no, we can’t allow you to increase to any length because that will affect all Nigerians and we will be seen to be selfish.”
“Even the N250,000 will not be useful to us. If we continue to increase salaries, it will make a mess of our economy and then you continue to increase pump price. In fact, that N250,000 may not be enough to even buy fuel.”
He added that “Mr President equally offered to fund our trip to tour some West African countries, where the lowest price of petrol is selling at N1,700. He even said in Cameroon, they are selling N2,000 and that none of them has a refinery but they are getting their products from Nigeria.
“We responded by telling him to check the borders because that is why they are smuggling those products to those countries. We equally said no because Nigerians will say they have given us money; they won’t say it’s money for us to visit those West African states.”
Ajaero said that on the adjourned date, they “went there and told Mr President, we are not here for increase in pump price or negotiation. So let’s concentrate on the minimum wage. Some of these factors influenced the decision to accept the N70,000 minimum wage, which some of us in attendance felt was insufficient. But some people are still saying they cannot pay that N70,000.
“This is the dilemma all of us are facing. In fact, the private sector employers in our meeting gave us a tough time. They refused to shift and they wanted to vote with state government, Federal government and the private sector on one side, all against labour on the other side. These were some of the things that necessitated all those walkouts you saw.”
Published by Ejoh Caleb
