SaharaReporters learnt that the organised labour also discussed plots by the Department of State Services (DSS) to recruit thugs to attack protesters during the rally.
Ahead of the February 27 and 28 nationwide protests against hardship and inflation in the country under President Bola Tinubu, human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, on Saturday met with the leaders of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to deliberate on the upcoming national rally.
SaharaReporters learnt that the organised labour also discussed plots by the Department of State Services (DSS) to recruit thugs to attack protesters during the rally.
In a post of his X handle, Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2019 and 2023 elections, said the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, during the meeting also warned that Nigeria would "be shut down PERMANENTLY if a strand of hair falls from the body of any protester across Nigeria on February 27 and 28, 2024."
The activist said, "Today at a meeting with the leadership of the @NLCHeadquarters in Abuja led by @JoeAjaero94024 to discuss and review serious and important national issues including but not limited to the execution of the upcoming two-day national rally to end hardships facing workers and Nigerians! We also discussed plans by the lawless @OfficialDSSNG to recruit thugs to attack protesters during the rally and the Comrade President Joe Ajaero vowed that Nigeria will be shut down PERMANENTLY if a strand of hair falls from the body of any protester across Nigeria on February 27 & 28 2024. #RevolutionNow."
SaharaReporters earlier today reported that Ajaero explained why the labour union was determined to embark on the planned nationwide hunger protest across the country on February 27 and 28.
Ajaero, who had given the explanation on Friday evening while speaking on X space hosted by SaharaReporters, clarified that the Trade Union Congress (TUC) had never been part of the planned protest from the beginning.
Asked of the specific challenges facing Nigerians that necessitated the declaration of the two-day nationwide protest and the position of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Ajaero had listed the high cost of food items, cement, transport, amongst others, which according to him were orchestrated by removal of fuel subsidy.
He had said, "Clearly speaking, TUC has never been part of the action from conception. The only warning signal was the TUC coming out to say they are not part of it, even when we didn't say they are part of it.
"For them to have gone further to deduce some letters disassociating themselves and leaking it to the media. Such statements were unprovoked. Their letter coming the same day the DSS sent a letter to us, warning us to shelve the protest, gives course to odd.
"The NLC at its National Executive Council last Friday, resolved to have a two-day protest on the cost of living on the high sea faced by Nigerians, and by implication, workers, to make their (NLC) position known, not just to the government but to every Nigerian."
Ajaero had said that the NLC in its response told the DSS "To keep their unsolicited advice; because history will not forgive NLC if we should keep quiet at this moment in Nigeria's political history."
On mobilisation for the planned protest, the NLC President said that all industrial unions in the country and 36 state councils and Abuja had resolved to organise the protest, adding that the union had started forwarding all the mobilisation materials to all the states, and had held several meetings with the union's civil society allies.
Ajaero said that "The whole crisis of this hardship and hunger started with the removal of fuel subsidy," stressing that "The moment that was touched, transportation and everything associated with it went up, that even if a wanted to go to a bush market to buy plantain, before she would transport it to the town, a lot of money has gone into it, and it will go out of the reach of an ordinary man."
He said that this was further aggravated by the free float of the Naira "Where Naira today is getting to almost N2,000 per Dollar."
According to him, "The implication of that is that every other neighbouring country's currencies are higher than Nigeria in value and that has led to a very large extent, the issue of smuggling.
"For a businesswoman, no matter how primitive and local, who knows that if she sells a paint of garri for N3,000, if she takes it through the border between Nigeria and Cotonou or Nigeria and Niger Republic, she will sell it maybe for N7,000, she would find her way to that area. To that extent, food will no longer be cheap and available to the common man."