The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has tackled the Nigerian Labour Congress over his .double-faced stance towards fuel subsidy removal.
The general secretary of the NLC, Emma Ugboaja, on Tuesday stated that the union would resist any attempt to remove petrol subsidy by the incoming administration.
This is despite the union’s open declaration and support for the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, who has insisted that he would also remove subsidy.
Obi has on different occasions reiterated that he would do away with fuel subsidy if elected president and once tagged it as an “organised crime”.
Reacting to the stance of the NLC to resist subsidy removal by the incoming administration, Keyamo wondered why the labour union who backed Obi will turn around to criticise a focal agenda in his manifesto.
He said: “With the greatest humility, this is a massive contradiction, my friends and comrades in NLC. You officially adopted Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate, as your candidate at the elections and he also vowed to remove subsidy on pms. YOU DID NOT PUBLICLY DISASSOCIATE YOURSELF THEN FROM HIS POSITION.
“I called out NLC then through a statement I issued and warned about the moral burden of adopting such a candidate when you are opposed to subsidy removal. Nobody listened to me; I knew a day like this will come. Now, you have the moral burden of reconciling your positions on this issue; though, I can vouch for your patriotism, you have to convince the nation that your position now is not political since your candidate lost at the election.
“I also urge you to re-think your position because subsidy presently gulps about N300 billion on a monthly basis and this economy cannot simply sustain this. What I think we should be talking about is a significant increase in the minimum wage (and all consequential adjustments) and an immediate identification of massive infrastructural developments in all regions of this country to where the money saved will be channeled immediately.
“This will create more jobs to the delight of NLC. We also need to convince the people that the money saved will not go into unnecessary recurrent expenditure. The earlier these discussions start, the better; but subsidy has to go.”
