THE NIGERIA Labour Congress (NLC) has again suspended its planned protest rally against recent 50% increase in telecom tariff following a last-minute engagement with the federal government.
The NLC had on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, at the end of a meeting of its National Administrative Council (NAC) announced Tuesday, February 4, 2025 to embark on a nationwide protest rally over the hike in telecommunication tariff.
The NLC said the rally will serve as a warning on the dangers of imposing such an unfair increase on a struggling population earning a minimum wage of only ₦70,000; a population that has suffered outrageous hike in the price of petrol, high cost of food, hike in electricity tariff and general rising inflation.
But on Monday, a federal government delegation, led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume, successfully ‘arrested’ the protest at a meeting with the leadership of NLC led by NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero.
A statement by the Director, Information and Public Relations in the office of the SGF, Mr Segun Imohiosen, disclosed that the meeting was aimed at maintaining industrial harmony and to also protect the interest of Nigerians.
According to the statement, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, who spoke on behalf of the federal government, disclosed that the purpose of the meeting was to look into the study carried out by the NCC which led to the 50 percent increment on telecommunications tariff.
Mr Imohiosen said after extensive deliberation, the two bodies agreed to set up a 10-man Committee composed of five representatives each from the federal government and the NLC to review the study and submit its report within two weeks.
“So, the summary of it is that Labour, and the Nigerian Labour Congress specifically, and the delegation of the federal government have set up a committee of five each. We are going to meet here continuously for the next two weeks. And at the end of the second week, we will now come up with a recommendation that we will give to government and the organised Labour for final consideration”, he stated.
On his part, Comrade Ajaero said that the NLC will wait till the outcome of the Committee to determine its next line of action.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) reached between NLC and the federal government, signed by the SGF and Minister of Labour and Employment, Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi on behalf of government and on Labour’s side, Comrades Ajaero and Emmanuel Ugboaja; outlined three issues:
“i. That there us a need for the parties to sit together in a technical group to resolve most of the thorny areas raised during the discussion;
“ii. Consequently, a ten-man joint committee was set up of five (5) representatives each from the Federal Government and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC); and
“iii. The Committee shall conclude and submit its deliberations within two (2) weeks from this 3rd day of February, 2025.”
Present at the meeting were Minister Communication and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijanni, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Aminu Maida, Minister of Labour and Employment, Alhaji Mohammed Maigari Dingyadi, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu, National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, among others.
National Record could recall that the federal government had in the past decade utilised this late strategy of engagement with organised labour, in which it deployed emergency and undigested MoUs, to effectively defang NLC as the leader of the trade union movement to defuse popular anger against anti-people policies.
The government has successfully perfected this strategy overtime, and had always bided its time until the eve of, or a day into, protests before calling for dialogue out of which labour leaders come waiving some MoUs as alibi for suspending resolutions for mass action.
Regardless of this repeated charade by the government, successive leaderships of organised labour in the last ten years or so seem to be unconscious of this history of obvious fraud and deception by every generation of Nigeria leadership, leading to the popular perception that contemporary leadership of organised labour has been bought.
