SaharaReporters had reported that the leadership of the NLC declared a two-day nationwide mass protest over the biting hardship in the country.
A pro-democracy and human rights group, Take It Back Movement (TIB) has asked its members and allies to join the planned nationwide protests against hunger and hardship scheduled for February 27 and 28.
The protest is organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
SaharaReporters had reported that the leadership of the NLC declared a two-day nationwide mass protest over the biting hardship in the country.
The leaders of the NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have insisted that they would embark on strike to protest against the policies of President Bola Tinubu’s government.
On Friday, TIB in a statement issued by its National Coordinator, Sanyaolu Juwon, said that following its emergency national meeting on Thursday, the group acknowledged the protests that have so far broken out at different parts of the country including Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Niger, Kwara and Kogi states.
The group commended the roles played by its respective movement coordinators in helping to organise and give directions to the protests.
It, however, bemoaned the unprecedented level of poverty, starvation, and insecurity in the country.
According to the statement, the group said it recognised subsidy removal, floating of the naira, and other International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies as the primary source of the current hardship in Nigeria.
The TIB therefore reiterated its outright rejection of fuel subsidy removal, plans to remove subsidies from electricity, fee hikes, the Students Loan Act, floating of the naira and what it described as President Tinubu’s imposition of IMF policies on Nigerians.
The group therefore called for “the reversal of fuel subsidy removal, fee hikes, floating of the naira, and other neoliberal policies being shoved down the throat of the Nigerian people”.
It demanded the “immediate reversal of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) verification rule and other calculated attacks against health workers”.
It declared its support for “labour demands for the upward review of the minimum wage to the tune of four hundred thousand naira” and tasked “Movement Coordinators, and members to work with all progressive forces towards a successful outing on February 26, 27, 28 and beyond”.
The group tasked its national leadership with sustaining physical and virtual resistance beyond the protests.