The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has directed all workers in the public sector of the country to embark on a nationwide strike starting from Wednesday next week.
The directive is coming after an initial ultimatum issued by the NLC’s Central Working Committee members criticising the cash swap policy of the Federal Government.
Giving the directive at a news briefing at the NLC headquarters, NLC President, Joe Ajaero, also ordered all affiliate unions constituting the Congress to be on standby for picketing exercises across all branches of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, nationwide.
Ajaero said the decision to picket CBN branches became necessary, as the Federal Government and the CBN have not shown any commitment to address the cash crunch situation.
He lamented that despite the Supreme Court’s order permitting the old N500 and N1000 notes and the new notes to remain as legal tender till December 31 this year, the situation has continued to deteriorate, as workers were not able to access cash to pay fares to work, nor buy foodstuffs for their families.
The apex labour union equally criticised the pricing irregularities in the petroleum sector, which was also a cause for concern.
His words; “Last week, we gave an ultimatum for the review of the cash crunch bedeviling the country, but we have discovered to our dismay that as at this moment not much effort has been made to ameliorate the situation, the government is still foot dragging on these issues we raised.
“Based on this, we met again this morning to review our position and resolved that by Wednesday next week, all CBN branches will be picketed.
“Workers are directed to stay at home too because people cannot eat, workers can no longer go to the office, we have been pushed to the wall, we have decided to take our destiny in our hands, we have mobilised our workers for this exercise.”