People at the protest were seen holding placards lamenting the economic situation in the country as they chanted “Hunger dey,” “Bring back subsidy.”
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Tuesday stormed the National Assembly in a Nationwide protest scheduled for February 27 and 28 over the high cost of living in the country.
The protesters were seen holding placards lamenting the economic situation in the country as they chanted “Hunger dey,” “Bring back subsidy.”
The President of the NLC, Mr Joe Ajero, while speaking to the lawmakers, urged the Federal Government to take immediate measures to solve the issues of hunger in the land.
According to him, the hunger in the land is very alarming, prices of goods have increased as Nigerians continue to grapple with economic hardship, and the union decided to embark on a nationwide protest to press their demands.
“We are here to, you know, do a rally so that Mr President, will know how Nigerians feel; will know where it is pinching us. You know, the tendency for you to have a president and the ministers and advisers around will not tell him exactly what happens is possible. So we are out to do a protest today to register before Nigerians the level of suffering and we are calling it a peaceful rally,” he said.
“The meeting you saw; there was a meeting on Sunday till late, and there was a meeting yesterday till late, all was aimed at saying, ‘Don’t come out’ but we are out for a peaceful rally to tell Nigerians that we are hungry. There is hunger in the land. There’s nobody that doesn’t know, there’s nobody that doesn’t know that a bag of rice is about N70,000 now or more. You can’t buy anything. Bread is out of reach. With N30,000 minimum wage, if you eat a loaf of bread every day, you’ll be spending almost N40,000.”
Meanwhile, the lawmakers speaking through Senator Diket Plang (APC, Plateau) Chairman of the Senate Committee on Labour, Employment, and Productivity encouraged the union to be peaceful stating that immediate action will be taken as the Federal Government is on it already.
It would be noted that organised labour unions are embarking on two-day protests across the country.
OrderPaper in its Legislative Intelligence Forcast Entry (LIFE) for the week had predicted that the protest by Labour would be one of the focal issues before the National Assembly this week. Read the article here.
