Tinubu’s proposed palliative cash transfer robs the poor and pays the rich. We reject it – NLC blows hot

The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC has bluntly rejected the palliatives proposed by the Nigerian Federal government to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal.

This was contained In a statement released today 18th of July, 2023, the NLC President Joe Ajaero, stated that the union rejects in totality the N8000 palliatives the Federal government plans to give to 12 million ‘mysterious’ poor Nigerians.

The union in its statement revealed that the Tinubu-led government has since its inception continued to ”inflict mindless and heartless pains on the populace one after the other without the decency of embracing the tenets of democracy which requires wide and deep stakeholder consultation on weighty matters of state”.

The Labour Congress said the proposal to pay N8,000 to each of the ‘’so-called 12 million poorest Nigerian households for a period of six months” insults the collective intelligence of Nigerians. The union says the proposal to pay National Assembly members the sum of N70b and the Judiciary N36b is the ‘’most insensitive, reckless and brazen diversion of our collective patrimony into the pockets of public officers whose sworn responsibility it is to protect our nation’s treasury”.

‘’There is no other way to explain the proposal to pay a misery sum of N8,000 Naira to each of the mysterious poorest 12 million Households for six months which amounts to N48,000 and pay just 469 National Legislators N70b or about N149m each while the Judiciary that has about 72 Appeal Court Judges, 33 National Industrial Court Judges, 75 Federal High Court Judges and 21 Supreme Court Judges and a total of about 201 Judges receives a total of N35b or N174m each. If these other two arms are projected to receive this, what members of the Executive Council will receive is better left to the imagination of Nigerians perhaps, the balance N150b will go to them.

These proposals are not just unacceptable to Nigerian workers but are also dictatorial thus undemocratic.”