From Judex Okoro, Calabar
The Cross River State Council of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has warned against anti people economic policies.
The protesting workers numbering hundreds marched through some major streets of Calabar and later went to the state house of assembly as well as the governor’s office.
Speaking during a protest rally held in Calabar on Wednesday against the effect of the subsidy removal on workers, the chairman of the state chapter of the council, Olayi Gregory, the workers and Nigerians are passing through terrible times and therefore would not close its eyes to the sufferings of the masses.
Gregory said: “If you are elected even at the state level, your policies should be friendly, we do not want policies that will come and kill the people that elected you.
“We did not elect you (President Tinubu) to come and treat us this way, we did not elect you to come and kill us.
“We cannot pay our transport from one place to the other within our urban centre. We want them to repair our refineries and stop the importation of fuel, please repair our refineries because that is what labour is looking for.
“Let us have a country where every citizen will benefit. The main point of our going out is that the government should repair all the refineries we have in this country,” the NLC state chairman said.
Also speaking, Monday Ogbodum, Chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), said they are protesting to condemn the policies of the president.
“We are here as organised labour in the state namely, NLC (TUC) and the Joint Council to condemn what the government of President Bola Tinubu is doing to Nigerians.
“The worsening economic situation in the country is what we are saying no, increase in the tuition of schools is what we are saying no, implementation of the increase in VAT is what we are saying no.
“We say no to privatization of hospitals and federal medical centres is what we are saying no, we also say no to any plan to increase the electricity tariff in the country we say no,” he said.
On his part, Comrade Raymond Akan, Chairman of the Joint Negotiation Council, said the President is playing double game with the subsidy as he had earlier protested against it.
“This anti people policy, anti workers policy, anti Nigerian policy we say no to all these things.
“We are here to tell the government of President Tinubu that he was against this policy in January 2012 and today he is now engaged in policy summersault.
“We want him to go back and remember that removing of Subsidy in Nigeria is not the end of it and other measures should be out in place to cushion the effect of this,” he said.