The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has said its members will not take part in the planned hardship protest.
The Congress said the organisers of the protest who it described as “unknown” have not reached out to it.
The president of the TUC, Comrade Festus Osifo stated this on Thursday, July 25, in Abuja when he addressed the press on national issues.
The TUC however urged the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to ensure the planned August 1 protest against bad governance and economic hardship was not hijacked by hoodlums waiting to take advantage of the situation.
Osifo said it was the responsibility of the Nigeria Police Force as well as the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to provide adequate security for protesters to ensure a peaceful protest.
He said: “When you are having a protest you need to sit down, have a conversation, have meetings, you plan but as of today, nobody has reached out to us that they want to protest, nobody has asked for our collaboration so how do you expect us to participate in a protest when we don’t know who is organising it?
“We don’t even have any idea whatsoever what is going to happen and as an institution, we also know that we have various organs that we run some of those things with. The leadership never sat down one day on the phone to call for a strike or protest but instead, we called organs meeting to do a review.
“The same way you saw it in the media is the way we have seen it. It’s something we don’t really know who is organising it, we don’t really know who is protesting but all we know is that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is very clear on the issue of protest and the Police Act also mandated the police that when there is a protest they should ensure there is law and order, they should ensure those that are protesting are also protected.
“That is why we are reminding them that the provision in the Police Act and the provision in the Constitution should be respected. If they had contacted us maybe we would have called our organs meeting for us to review but as of today, there is nothing to discuss, there is nothing to review.”
On the face-off between Dangote and stakeholders in the petroleum industry, Osifo advised President Bola Tinubu to, as a matter of urgency, wade into the escalating crisis to avoid losing the confidence of investors in the country.
While calling for an abrupt stop to statements arising from the various parties, he said there was a need to find a solution to the problem, to attract more investments to help turn around the nation’s economic woes.
He said: “We feel and strongly believe that Dangote is one huge investment that has impacted Nigeria. Where there are challenges, what they should do is for everybody to sit down together to find a solution.
“Let all the unguarded statements be stopped forthwith. The president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should bring all of them together and give them marching orders to go and resolve whatever issues they have.
“Whenever we go to the press, whenever we go to public and we keep castigating each other, it is going to drive away investment. As a country and as a people we need massive investment in Nigeria.
“We can only have massive investment when the economic conditions are right. We can only have massive investments when the prevailing environment is investment-friendly. So we want these rhetorics to stop, we want the President to call these people to order, let them sit down together, and find solutions to whatever challenges they are facing.
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“We are not quite interested in what the issues are. We are concerned about the rhetorics that are in the public sphere and the public space because they will tend to drive investors away. So the President should invite all of them and get this matter resolved forthwith.”
Explaining why organised labour settled for N70,000 as a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers, Osifo noted that minimum wage negotiation or any wage negotiation is always backed by data and facts.
The TUC President, who noted that organised labour set out for a living wage of N615,000 given the current economic realities and a rumour that the government was settling for N55,000 as the new minimum wage, noted that they had to settle for a minimum wage as state governments were not willing to come to the negotiation table for a living wage.
Giving an analysis of the inflation trend from the last minimum wage review in 2019, Osifo said with the N70,000 minimum wage, labour was able to achieve a 92 percent performance, resulting in a 133 percent increment in the minimum wage.