The NLC chairman who thanked Governor Soludo for paying the workers in the state N12,000 wage award from September to December 2023, however, added, “What is biting us is still biting us, even stronger.”
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Anambra State on Tuesday told Governor Chukwuma Soludo that the level of hunger and hardship in the state had become so unbearable that some people were slumping and dying while those alive were suffering and smiling.
The NLC on Tuesday at the Government House, Awka, the State capital, lamented that while workers across the country were complaining that the approved N30,000 minimum wage was no longer worth anything because of inflation, Governor Soludo was not paying workers in the state the approved minimum wage.
Presenting the union’s complaint and demand to the Head of Civil Service in the state, Mrs. Theodora Igwegbe, who addressed the protesters on behalf of the governor, the NLC Chairman in the state, Comrade Humphrey Nwacor, also lamented that the lives of people in the state and the country at large were no longer safe as people were dying daily because of kidnappings and violent crimes.
Nwafor said, “We are here to do a formal presentation of our anger. We are here to make the government know that we are not happy. There is hunger in the land. There is insecurity.
“The N30,000 minimum wage that governors are claiming that they are paying workers cannot even take us home. A bag of rice is now N80,000. House rent has skyrocketed. The cost of transportation has skyrocketed as well. A bag of cement is now between N14,000 and N16,000.
“The minimum wage, we are not even seeing it. The one that was approved in 2015 or thereabouts has not been implemented even in this state. We are not happy.”
The NLC chairman who thanked Governor Soludo for paying the workers in the state N12,000 wage award from September to December 2023, however, added, “What is biting us is still biting us, even stronger.”
Nwafor said, “The time he gave us that wage award, the type of biting we were having then is not as serious as what we are experiencing now.
“We are pleading with the Governor to look into the wage award again and restore the wage award, and even review it because he told us that the wage award would be due for review either upward, downward or total removal at the end of December, and by January, the wage award was removed.
“We are suffering. Workers are suffering. People are slumping and dying. Devaluation of Naira, the exchange rate is increasing day by day. The cost of living is going high. Inflation everywhere.
“We the workers are the ones suffering. Politicians are not feeling what we are feeling. All the salary earners are suffering in the country and we want the government to look into it and address it.”
On the issue of fuel subsidy removal which the NLC chairman blamed on the problems, he said, “We have a refinery in Port Harcourt. That has been the position of Congress, why not fix that refinery? The federal government can as well issue licenses to those who are doing modular refining. They can refine and their product can sustain the country. Why are they resorting to importation?
“Our lives are no longer safe. People are dying every now and then. Kidnapping, all sorts of violence are being meted out to workers and we don’t have any power of our own.”
On the issue of the contributory pension scheme, the NLC chairman said that the union had written to the government demanding that the programme be put on hold.
“Let them suspend deduction and he (governor) said this February. After this February and that deduction continues, the organized labour will have no choice but maybe tell the government our position.
“If they want that programme to continue, we should go back to the round table and find out where things have gone wrong and sort it out,” he said.
Speaking further, he lamented that the cost of living had become so high that even “the women on the streets selling sachet water have reviewed their price and a sachet is now N50 and we are the ones buying it”.
He continued, “Our salary remains constant the way it has been for over seven years now. Anambra state is the least paid (workers) in the whole region, and it is not good for us as a state, as a people. We are suffering and smiling here and we cannot continue to be in that position. A hungry man is an angry man.
“Gani Fawehinmi said that it is illegal to be lawful in an unlawful society. When the people in government refuse to do the needful, refuse to take up their primary aim of security of lives and properties, the welfare of the people they govern, there is a possibility that the society may turn into an illegal society.”
Addressing the protesters, the Head of Service apologised for the governor’s absence due to the building collapse incident that occurred in the Ochanja area of the popular Onitsha city on Monday night.
Igwegbe applauded the workers for conducting the protest in a nonviolent manner and noted that “all of us are really affected by the current economic situation in the country. There is no doubt that things are very hard now and it is affecting all of us”.
Promising to relay the labour union’s message to the governor, Igwegbe said, “You know that we have a governor who always has the concern of the people he governs at heart. I will deliver your message to him and I know he will take the right action.
“Good enough, he is not only the state governor, he is also representing the region in the minimum wage committee and he is also part of the federal government’s economic advisory council. He feels the concern of everybody in the state and I know he will take the right action.”
Protest against hunger and hardship organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress is going on across the country and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
