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Fuel Subsidy: You Have Double Standards, Acting Out Peter Obi’s Script Over Planned Protest, Fani-Kayode Tells Nigeria Labour Congress

Fuel Subsidy: You Have Double Standards, Acting Out Peter Obi’s Script Over Planned Protest, Fani-Kayode Tells Nigeria Labour Congress
June 5, 2023

The former minister added that the union is directly advocating for the political interest of the Labour Party candidate in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi.  

Femi Fani-Kayode, former aviation minister and the ruling All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council's Director of New Media during the 2023 general election, has described the planned protest by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) against the Nigerian government's removal of fuel subsidy as a reflection of the union's leadership's hypocrisy and insincerity.

 

Fani-Kayode, who stated this in a series of tweets on Monday, chastised the NLC leadership for failing to go on strike when the country faced a financial shortage as a result of the former President Buhari Muhammadu's Naira swap policy.

 

The former minister added that the union is directly advocating for the political interest of the Labour Party candidate in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi.  

 

The NLC endorsed Obi’s candidacy in the presidential election.

 

He noted that the leadership of the NLC did not threaten to go on strike when the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele introduced his “horrendous, callous, wicked, malevolent, barbaric, vicious, self-seeking, politically-motivated, unconstitutional and illegal cash confiscation and money deprivation policy that resulted in the suffering, hunger, destruction, death, suicide, hardship, depression, frustration, madness and despair of millions of our people”.

 

He continued, “Instead, they are threatening to go on strike over the implementation of a well-thought out and credible policy on oil subsidy which the Nigerian people endorsed by voting for a President who promised to remove it and which, though initially tough, will inevitably and eventually result in the restoration and resurrection of our economy and ensure that we have the necessary funds and resources for massive infrastructural development.

 

“Is this not strange and is it not a reflection of the insincerity, double standards and hypocrisy of the leadership of the Labour Congress? Does it not prove the fact they are acting out a script and that they are nothing more than a pack of ravenous wolves, implacable adversaries, insidious subversives and opportunistic mercenaries who are in the hands and power of Peter Obi?

 

“If Peter orders them to jump they will ask, "Bwana, how high?" Yet the truth is that whether the NLC likes it or not the oil subsidy MUST and WILL go. That is the only way to save our country from the fiscal challenges, rot and deterioration that it has suffered over the last 15 years and put us back on the right track for national development.”

 

SaharaReporters earlier reported that the NLC had written all its 43 affiliate unions to mobilise for a scheduled industrial action scheduled to begin on Wednesday, June 7, 2023.

 

In a letter written to the affiliates which was signed by the NLC General Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja, the Congress said all national leaderships were expected to mobilise their members for the action and ensure full compliance with the directives as services in both the public and private sector were expected to be fully withdrawn by Wednesday.

 

The strike follows the hikes in the pump prices of Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol.

 

Some of the affiliates of the NLC include the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria, and National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives.