The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has asked its members nationwide to commence mobilisation ahead of an industrial action on Wednesday, March 29, 2023 over hardship associated with scarcity of cash in the country.
President of the Congress, Comrade Joe Ajaero, while speaking with journalists in Abuja Wednesday, said mobilisation will commence on Friday while the total shutdown of economic activities across the nation will begin on Wednesday next week.
The movement on March 13, 2023 issued a 7-day ultimatum to the federal government to address the cash crisis as well as fuel scarcity or be ready to face industrial action.
According to the NLC President, the industrial action became imperative since all appeals for the federal government through different channels to take into consideration the severe hardship workers and Nigerian citizens are experiencing because of the persistent cash crunch did not yield any result.
“Last week at the end of our CWC meeting, we gave a one week ultimatum for the federal government to address immediately, among others, the issue of cash crunch that was caused by the policy. As at this morning when the CWC met again to review the situation, we discovered that not much improvement has been made.
“The situation is still almost the same. People are still buying our currency with our currencies. People can no longer can still not assess the currency and the government seems to be very adamant on this. No moves have been made to reduce the suffering of Nigerians.
“Consequently, the CWC-in-session resolved to go into the process of actualizing the one week notice.
“From Friday, there will be mobilisation of all state councils through a NEC meeting. All unions have already been directed to mobilise all their organs and their branches. By Wednesday, next week, all Central Bank of Nigeria offices nationwide will be picketed.
“We call on Nigerians to understand the circumstances we’re operating in. People will be telling you about the political situation. The political situation is self inflicted and the economic situation is worse than the political situation because people cannot eat,” Ajaero said.
