?Alleges two years of intimidation, harassment

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has alleged that President Bola Tinubu?s reforms since he took over office two years ago have only brought more hardship and pain to Nigerians.

They alleged that the promises made by the president when he assumed office on bold economic reforms that would rescue Nigeria from fiscal instability and set it on a path to prosperity was the magnitude of suffering and hardship the policies have inflicted on workers and ordinary Nigerians.

NLC President Joe Ajaero said far from renewing hope, his administration has recycled the same failed neoliberal experiments of the past, proving once again that you cannot cure a patient by prescribing the poison that made them sick in the first place.

According to him, the sudden removal of petrol subsidy sent shockwaves through an already fragile economy, skyrocketing fuel prices from N187 to over N600 per litre overnight.

He said instead of reinvestment, Nigerians got inflation so vicious that families now skip meals, businesses shutter daily, and transport costs consume the little that remains of workers? wages.

The naira, according to him, left to the so-called ?market forces,? has collapsed in value, turning Nigeria into a bargain basement for neighbouring countries while local industries suffocate under the weight of imported inflation.

?What makes this pain even more frustrating is that none of it is new. We have seen this script before?subsidy removals, devaluations, and IMF-approved austerity?each time sold as the bitter pill Nigeria must swallow for a brighter future. But when has it ever worked?

?The same policies under past administrations only widened inequality, enriched a few, and left the majority poorer. Tinubu?s version is no different, except the suffering is deeper, the anger louder, and the government?s response more brutal,? he said.

Lamenting that it has been two years of intimidation and harassment for labour leaders and trade unions in Nigeria, Ajaero stated that Nigerian workers (real wages obliterated), pensioners, SMEs (over 150 per cent inflation in inputs), and 150 million Nigerians are now multi-dimensionally poor.

He said even the wage awards arrears the Federal Government promised to pay to cushion the hardship had remained unpaid.

Rather, he said workers demanding a living wage are met with batons and threats, while the government wallows in luxuries.

He pointed out that if this government truly wants to renew hope, it must abandon these cruel experiments, listen to the people, and chart a new course?one that puts Nigerians, not foreign creditors and profiteers, at the centre of policy, stressing that anything less is a betrayal of public trust.

?The only thing we single out is the provision of CNG buses for the use of Nigerian workers across the nation by the Federal Government to ease transportation, which remains inadequate and hampered by serious Gas infrastructural deficits.

?The same officials, who preach sacrifice travel in convoys, feast on bloated budgets, and treat public funds like personal piggy banks. Meanwhile, factories flee, jobs vanish, and hunger becomes the defining feature of Tinubu?s Nigeria.

?Who benefits from this folly? Not the millions of Nigerians, who can no longer afford food or transport. Not the small businesses buried under the weight of rising costs. The real winners are the usual suspects?the oil cartels, the currency speculators, the political elite with offshore accounts, and their foreign backers at the IMF and World Bank, who have always seen Nigeria as a laboratory for their disastrous economic theories.

While economic stability is undoubtedly a crucial aspect of governance, Ajaero queried that the stark reality of citizens living in constant fear, with lives upended by the heinous acts of criminals, demands immediate attention and action. Who would invest in such an environment except for looters and plunderers??

He said ?The truth is simple: reforms that only bring pain without gain are not reforms at all. They are deformations?a deliberate assault on the poor in service of a system that rewards the powerful.? (The Guardian)

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