Ajaero said the government has refused to implement any of
the demands of the NLC, in the wake of the removal of subsidy on petrol and the
floating of the naira.
“Government said we should not do rally and they said some
of us, if we come out, we are going to have a date with history. So they used
peaceful means and they used threats but we are in God’s hands,” he said.
“We are here to do a rally so that Mr. President will know
how Nigerians feel and how it is pinching us. You know the tendency for you to
have a president and the ministers and advisers around would not tell you
exactly what is happening. It is possible.
“We are out here to
do a protest to register before
Nigerians the level of suffering. We are calling it peaceful rally.”
Ajaero added that the cost of transportation and food
commodities increased due to the removal of subsidy on petrol.
He said the NLC had proposed the use of compressed natural
gas (CNG) vehicles as substitute for petrol powered vehicles, the cash transfer
programme and an increment of the minimum wage, in a bid to ameliorate the
hardship on the people.
‘WE ARE PROTESTING
HUNGER, NOT MINIMUM WAGE’
Speaking further, Ajaero added that: “This protest is not
about minimum wage, you have to understand it. This protest is about hunger.
What of those that are not working? The minimum wage, when will it be completed
to be the minimum wage that will remove hunger?”
“The UN said the poorest man should be fed on $2 per day.
That is the poorest and if we have a family of six people, at $2 per six is
$12. In a month, you have $360 which translates to about N700,000,” he said.
“Is that the minimum wage you are talking about? Just
feeding alone. I’m not talking about transportation and accommodation and
medicals.
“We don’t even know if the previous minimum wage has been
implemented in some places, so that it will enable us to do proper analysis of
the cost of living across the geopolitical zones, so that we will factor it
into the approach we want to adopt with regards to the cost of living index.
“We will have raw
data for our analysis before we look at the figures. We equally have many
things to look at in the current minimum wage.
“Whether we should continuously allow the minimum wage to be
reviewed every five years… absolutely not, because before five years, no matter
what you are doing, it would be eroded by inflation and devaluation of the
currency.
“We have some other ideas on how to go about the minimum
wage. On what we said about the N1 million we are demanding, if the current
value of the naira continues to depreciate at the current rate, there will be a
time that N1 million may be difficult for you to buy a loaf of bread.
“If you have a situation where you need a bagful of money to
buy a handful of goods, then that economy is gone.”
The NLC president added that after the protest today, “we
will review the situation and decide on other steps to be taken”.
The federal government has insisted that there has been
substantial progress on the agreements reached with organised labour.
