NLC, Ajaero playing politics, acting Labour Party’s script – Onanuga

The Director of Media and Publicity for the defunct All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, has asked Nigerian workers to ignore the call of the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero to embark on a protest over the subsidy removal.

Onanuga made this call in a statement issued via his verified Twitter handle on Saturday.

It would be recalled that the NLC President had issued directives, proposing for a strike slated to commence Wednesday over the removal of fuel subsidy.

But, Onanuga stated that the Ajaero-led union is playing politics and acting the script of the opposition Labour Party, LP.

According to him, the protest was targeted at destabilising President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

The statement read partly: “NLC President Joe Ajaero has asked workers to go on strike next Wednesday over the removal of petrol subsidy, despite being privy to the distressing financial figures, which justified why subsidy ought to have been scrapped a long time ago.

“My advice to the perceptive workers and the Nigerian populace is simply to ignore Ajaero and his ilk. He is playing politics and is actually acting the script of the opposition Labour Party, out to destabilise the young Tinubu administration.

“Besides, one wonders whose interest Ajaero is championing, when he did not oppose the position of his Labour Party and presidential candidate, who campaigned with the promise to scrap subsidy from Day One, if elected.

“NLC and TUC leaders knew since last year November that subsidy will be scrapped from July 1 as no provision has been made in the budget for it, beyond this date.

“The Federal Government which already commits 96 percent of its revenue in servicing debt is not in any position to continue selling subsidised fuel, most of which is smuggled across our borders for criminal and obscenely unpatriotic profit.”

Onanuga maintained that the fuel subsidy was no longer sustainable as the FG is virtually broke.

He noted that, apart from its N77 trillion debt, the Federal Government also owed the NNPC Limited about N2.4 trillion for past subsidies.

He said, “The Nigerian people and workers should support the government as it works out new wages and rolls out other interventions, as promised by President Tinubu, to mitigate the effects of the new fuel price.

“Let’s not make ourselves pawns in the hands of the politically biased and tainted NLC and TUC. Ajaero is no more a labour leader. He is a politician and leader of the Labour Party. He is no more representing all the Nigerian workers,” he added.