LAST week, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) threatened to embark on a nationwide strike if the challenges of cash crunch and fuel scarcity were not immediately addressed. In a communiqué issued at the end of its Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting held in Abuja, the congress said that the challenges were most worrisome. The communiqué jointly signed by the NLC national president, Comrade Joe Ajaero, and its general secretary, Emma Ugboaja, charged the Federal Government to take immediate action to cushion the economic and social hardships inflicted by cash crunch and fuel scarcity on Nigerians. It said: “CWC resolved to give the government seven working days beginning from Tuesday, March 14 to make naira notes available to the people or Congress would be compelled to direct its members to withdraw their services. Similarly, the CWC-in-session, after reviewing the fuel supply situation in the country and the attendant arbitrary costs at filling stations, expressed dismay at the nonchalance of the NNPC and the government. It accordingly resolved to ask the NNPC/ Federal Government to normalise the fuel supply situation.”

This week, however, the organised labour extended by two weeks the deadline given to the government to restore normalcy in the cash and fuel supply situations. Addressing a joint press conference at the Labour House in Abuja, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), observed that there had been noticeable progress in the effort by the government to solve the problem of cash squeeze across the country. According to the NLC president, Comrade Joe Ajaero, the meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the congress assessed the situation around the country and concluded that although there had been some level of compliance by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in flooding the banks with cash for dispensing to customers, there was a need to extend the deadline in order to monitor and ensure that the tempo of operations by banks was sustained. Consequently, both Ajaero and the TUC president, Festus Usifoh, suspended the picketing of the CBN offices scheduled to hold on Wednesday this week.

On its own part, the Federal Government is apparently confident that it has succeeded in aborting the planned protest. Speaking during the weekly ministerial briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Team at the State House, Abuja, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, said that the threat of protest by the labour unions had been “arrested.” The minister, accompanied by the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN), and other senior officials of the ministry, enthused: “Now they (labour unions) have all answered our calls because we are the chief conciliators…By Section 7:8 of Trade Dispute Act, once the minister apprehends and starts conciliation on issues, you maintain status quo ante bellum. So, they have gone back now to review the situation. If they are not satisfied with what they see, they will come back to me and I will invite the CBN again. But for now, the issue of discussion is no longer strike; the issue of discussion is implementation and how far it has gone and how far it affects Nigerian workers and the general population.”

It is, indeed, an alien from Mars who would not appreciate the enormity of the anguish that Nigerians have suffered for months now over the cash and fuel situations. Although the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) have been giving back the cash confiscated from Nigerians, the situation is far from normalised. With regard to PMS, although the Federal Government has not said that it has removed subisdy, Nigerians have been at the mercy of mindless marketers for months. These marketers fleece customers mindlessly, selling fuel at exorbitant prices and claiming that they are merely responding to market dynamics. It is no surprise that most marketers refuse to sell fuel in kegs to enable consumer’s power their generating sets in the face of excruciating pains and hardship caused by the lack of public power supply. Sadly, there has been practically no pragmatic action taken so far by the official regulators to protect Nigerians.

The no cash, no fuel situation has made life difficult and miserable for the citizens as inflation soars. This is despite the fact that the country paid as much as N3 trillion as fuel subsidy for only six months, a double tragedy for Nigerians. Therefore, though the NLC’s planned strike has been suspended, it is still imperative to have concrete action to end the wicked action of shylock marketers who continue to wreak havoc on the health and economic power of Nigerians. With the marketers charging indiscriminate prices whenever petrol is available, Nigerians are left with no alternative but to submit to exploitation. It is really difficult to understand why or how a government could be so unconcerned and unmoved by the plight of its own citizens given that governments ordinarily exist to cater to the interests and welfare of the people. Of course, it is also troubling that it has taken the labour union more than six months to voice concern about the pains of Nigerians in this regard. The whole development speaks to the utter insensitivity of members of the ruling class in Nigeria to the living conditions of hapless Nigerians, whether they are directly in government or superintending over other levels, including private and even supposedly people-oriented organisations such as labour unions.

Many times, the labour unions have been found to simply engage in jamborees of empty public statements. They pretend to act against the government in the interest of the masses, only to cozy up to the government in the end without any benefit for the people. It is befuddling that workers and other categories of Nigerians have been subjected to the excruciating pains of cash shortages and fuel scarcity and the accompanying exorbitant prices in the midst of rising, if not galloping inflation, for this long without adequate response and display of concern from both the government and labour leaders. We can only hope that the NLC and TUC have now awoken to the continuing deplorable situation in the country and that they will succeed in getting the government to put a stop to the persisting misery of Nigerians.

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