The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has accused federal government of further enriching State governors with palliatives which were supposedly meant to cushion the pains of subsidy removal.
President of the NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero who spoke at the NLC National Symposium tagged: ‘Nigeria Economy and the Crisis of Survival: Robbing the Poor to Pay the Rich,’ described the removal of fuel subsidy as a “war against the poor”.
Ajaero who cited an example that governors were in the habit of converting whatever was meant for the poor masses and workers for their personal use and benefit, explained that the palliatives which the federal government was giving to a whole state were barely enough to adequately cater for just one Local Government Area in a State.
“What is happening in the country today is clearly a class war between us the dispossessed and those that have. They want to continue to have. Whether is the issue of subsidy or whatever. So it is clearly a war against the poor. I have not seen such wickedness against the poor anywhere as seen in Nigeria today.
“The announcement we got about the N5 billion allocation to the States is so annoying. You allocate billions to States and five trucks of rice. If you share five trucks of rice to a local government they will not get one, one cup.
“If we accept the position of the Bureau of Statistics that we have 133 million Nigerians that are multidimensionally poor before the subsidy removal. And after the subsidy removal, the number must have increased or doubled. If you multiply 5 billion by 36 States and Abuja, you will get about 185 billion. If you divide it by 133 million which is multi-dimensionally poor, each person will not get up to N1,500. Is that the palliative?
“You will take the palliative and give to the governors. It is obvious that anything you call palliative and give to the governors is not for workers. We all remembered how former President Buhari gave them money to offset salaries of workers but they refused to use the money to better the life of Nigerian citizens under the governance.”
The NLC President also regretted that through the unfavorable actions of the government, the gap between the poor and rich in Nigeria was further widening, even as the middle class has been totally eliminated.
“People can’t go to work again, there is nothing on ground for them to work on. This lamentation has continued to go on And on, and Nigerian workers are at the receiving end.
“What the bourgeoisie is getting is not reducing. They are getting subsidy on daily basis, some of them that are importing goods, they are giving them import wavers. Their allowances are increasing but that of Nigerian workers are decreasing by the day.
“Poverty situation is worsening, the level of unemployment is unimaginable and the same with the level of underemployment. There is hardly any Nigerian that is properly remunerated going by what is happening in the country.
“The worst is that there is no social safety net. no transportation system, no housing, even if a worker saves for 35 years, the money cannot afford housing. Our pension deductions we cannot say much about it. Now what is it that government is actually doing for the citizens? Where is welfarist service component of the State to its citizens?
“This is a call that this lamentation is more and the gap between the poor and the rich is getting wide by the day. The middle class has disappeared and there is no conscious effort to redeem the situation.”
Speaking further, Ajaero raised concerns that government has once again begun to treat workers’ welfare with levity and was treating it with its normal lackadaisical attitude by failing honour promises of acting on concerns raised by the union for the benefit of not just public servants, but Nigerians in general.