The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has on Tuesday vowed to continue to resist any form of oppression on the masses by the Federal Government.
This was stated by Chairman of the Ogun State chapter of the NLC, Comrade Emmanuel Bankole, while speaking with journalists in Abeokuta.
Bankole also disclosed that the organized labour has suspended its planned protest over the proposed removal of fuel subsidy by the Nigerian government.
The Labour chief said the suspension of the protest was informed by the federal government’s decision to abort the proposed increment in the price of petrol.
Ripples Nigeria on Monday reported that the government was putting on hold its initial plan of removing subsidy on petroleum products by June 2022, and this was after the labour unions and student unions threatened to hit the streets to protest.
The labour congress had fixed February 1, 2022 for a nationwide protest to resist the government’s decision, but arising from an emergency NEC meeting of the Congress, Bankole said after considering many factors, the NLC has decided to shelve the proposed protest.
Bankole said, “We have only one task before us and that is to resist government oppression in any form. We have passed through this path before and here we are again.
“We had a NEC meeting in December when we started having insinuations that they are going to hike petroleum products come February. We had a meeting and NEC took a decision that any day we hear that any kobo has been added to it, we should not even wait for any directive, we should just shutdown the country.
“We had the directive to mobilise and sensitise our people that never again shall we allow any subsidy removal, never again shall we allow them to deceive us.
“Yesterday (Monday) there was a formal publication from the government to the leadership of the congress that government putting the fuel subsidy removal on hold”.
“So, arising from that, we had an emergency NEC meeting and we deliberated and the consensus of opinion is that since the proposed demonstration protest on the plan to hike the price of petroleum and since they have rescinded their decision that we should also shelve our proposed action.”
