Fuel/Electricity increase: NLC, TUC hold crucial emergency meetings ahead of nation wide protest

There are strong indication that Organised Labour may draw its members and Nigerians out this week to protest the recent increase in pump price of petroleum and electricity.
Ahead of the protest, The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has scheduled emergency meetings of two of its organs, the National Administrative Council (NAC) and Central Working Committee (CWC) this Wednesday at its headquarters in Abuja.
The meetings of the top organs of the Congress are to ratify and grant permission for the leadership to organise the nationwide protests along with the other allies in the country.
The NLC in a letter to its affiliates on Friday has said the two emergency meetings which would hold at 10:00am and 2:00pm is on the state of the nation.
The NLC in the letter has emphasized the importance of the members attending the meetings, stressing that, “Please note that your presence at the NAC and CWC meetings of the NLC is very crucial.”
The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, though has not been specific on the date for the protest, but has informed Daily Sun that the workers would hit the road immediately the organs gave the go ahead.
He said, “We are Organised Labour and don’t go on any action unless we get the go ahead from our organs. We took the decision to protest in Rivers in our organ meeting and by then the price increase has not been announced.
“But now that it has now been announced, we are going to take appropriate action after our organs have met and deliberated and take decision on it.”
Wabba said Nigerians expected labour to take to the street immediately after the announcement, but he maintained that organising takes a lot of planning to succeed.
He however said that labour is happy that Nigerians are now conscious of what is happening around them and taking responsibility.
He stated, “I know that Nigerians are expecting labour to provide leadership in this dispensation, we would surely provide the leadership, we are not going to let them down.
“Just like we said in 2016, that Nigerians would be the ones to call us to come and lead, we have been vindicated. In 2016, every other groups deserted us when we were protesting the hike then. See where that has led us. But now Nigerians are now organizing themselves in groups to protest, labour is happy about that and we commend all of them.”
In the same vein, the Trade Union Congress on Friday held a Zoom meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) on the latest increase in the pump price of Petroleum and Electricity.
According to one of the NEC members, TUC is scheduled to hold another meeting tomorrow to finalize the details of the protest against the double increase and all insensitive actions of the government.
“The protest may hold this week, but if not, definitely it cannot go beyond next week. We are meeting to draw the modalities and probably the cooperation we may have with our other allies,” our source noted.