President Bola Tinubu has appealed to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over its plan to go on strike.

The Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen said:

“Labour should give the Federal Government more time to look into its grievances, rather than embark on industrial action.”

“The government is yet to roll out palliatives because it didn’t want to make mistakes, the meeting with organised labour was productive and will continue tomorrow.”

“The agenda of the meeting involves labour and some parts of government, it’s a steering committee. it’s a wide group of people, a wide group of stakeholders representing the interests of Nigerians. And we’ve agreed to continue to make progress.”

“It was a very productive meeting, the focus was really around how we fast-track a lot of the interventions that will bring relief, particularly around CNG, mass transportation, cleaner energy, transportation, and reduce the impact of the cost of transportation, the increased cost of transportation.”

“So we’ve made good progress. And we’re going to continue to do so and so that we can start rolling out these opportunities and these relief measures as quickly as possible.”

“As regards to whether labour will not embark on strike as threatened, the labour unions will speak to that. But we are making progress; we’re trying to address the issues that will prevent a strike. So that is essentially why I feel we made very good progress today and will continue to do so.”

“President Bola Tinubu is working assiduously to address all of these issues. And as quickly as he can, he’s very empathetic; he is concerned about it, as you’ve seen all of us working round the clock here to make sure we are able to announce these measures as quickly as possible. It’s a whole package of issues that we’re rolling out as quickly as possible.”

For those who don’t know, NLC on Wednesday, July 26th, 2023 directed all its affiliates and state councils to immediately begin mobilization of workers and other Nigerians, including civil society allies, for a long lasting strike and mass protests should the government fail to meet its demands.

Part of its demands is the immediate reversal of all anti-poor policies of the federal government including the recent hike in PMS price, increase in public school fees, the release of the eight months withheld salary of university lecturers and workers and increase in VAT.