Nigeria Labour Congress Declares Two-day Warning Strike Over Removal Of Fuel Subsidy

 

The Nigeria Labour Congess (NLC) has declared a two-day nationwide warning strike from next Tuesday, September 5, 2023 over the economic hardship in the country, worsened by the removal of the petrol subsidy by the government.

 

The union announced the industrial action on Friday to demand immediate adjustment of economic policies to make lives easier and more meaningful for the masses.

 

NLC in June also declared a nationwide strike amid fuel shortages across the country occasioned by President Bola Tinubu’s inaugural speech in which he declared that “fuel subsidy is gone”.

 

However, a few days after this announcement, SaharaReporters reported that the union made a U-turn after meeting with the delegates of the Nigerian government at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday.

 

The union announced that some measures had been put in place and an agreement was reached for the strike not to go on as planned.

 

In a press release dated June 6, 2023, jointly signed by Comrade Joe Ajaero, the NLC president, and Comrade Emmanuel Ugboaja, the NLC General Secretary, the union explained that a pending court order prohibiting them from embarking on the planned strike was one of the reasons for the suspension of the nationwide shutdown.

 

It noted that it also recognised the willingness of the “government for continuous engagement through dialogue and to offer reasonable palliatives in due course to cushion the effect of its policies and some levels of understanding reached”.

 

According to the National Executive Council of the NLC, it also considered “the mood of the Socio-polity (after the) last elections and the need to pursue national stability.”