Worried by the devastating economic crunch in Nigeria, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) on Tuesday cautioned the Federal government against the adoption of economic advisories from International Lending agencies including the International Monetary Fund, (IMF) and the World Bank.
Besides, the Labour union reminded that the foreign input on the nation’s economy has rather compounded the living conditions and brought hardship to Nigerians.
The Chairman, Kano State chapter of NLC, Comrade Kabiru Inuwa who stated this while joining the nationwide protest in Kano said the present economy crunching is fast becoming unbearable for the average citizen on a daily basis.
Rather than salvaging the pains of Nigerians, Comrade Inuwa lamented that Nigerians were further impoverished by the situation, just as he demanded urgent remedy.
According to him, “The issue we are talking about before the government is for them to allow the masses to breathe because we are living in hunger and poverty. Our level of poverty is increasing day by day. Prices of commodities are skyrocketing. Everyday you go to the market, commodity prices increase on an hourly basis. This is why we are complaining. They should allow us to breathe.
“They should forget about the International lenders policies that are only targeted at creating problems for the African Nations because a hungry man is an angry man.
“We have the belief that the International lenders have no goodwill or intention on Nigeria. Considering our number, they want to make us poorer so that there will be chaos in the nation. What we have is enough, we cannot tackle it. Now, many people are being recruited into crimes that are unimaginable in Nigeria.
“We are calling on the government to kindly allow the masses to breathe. Ameliorate the hardships and sufferings so that at least the masses can put food on their table and send their children to school.
“We are all aware that the International lenders can never give you money without some stringent policies or conditions and part of it is for you to remove whatever you are doing to your masses simply because they want your country to be in chaos and disarray.
“Although, they did not force us to take their money, it is some greedy leadership that collected their monies and we did not see any impact of the monies amounting to trillions we collected from them,” he said.
Receiving the protesting workers at the Government House, the state Head of Service, Abdullahi Musa, said plans were underway by the state government to attend to the request by the labour union on the issue of wage award in the state.
The Head of service who received the letter of protest on behalf of the government, said plans were underway by the state government to put measures in place to ameliorate the suffering of the people especially as Ramadan is fast approaching.
He assured the protesters that the state government will look into issues enumerated by the NLC Chairman and act on those within its purveyor while it deliver the letter to Mr. President for actions on issues raised.