Bayo Onanuga, the former Director of Media and Publicity for the defunct All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, has urged Nigerian workers to disregard the call from Joe Ajaero, the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, to protest against the removal of fuel subsidy.
Onanuga made this appeal in a statement posted on his verified Twitter account on Saturday, accusing the Ajaero-led union of engaging in political maneuvers and following the agenda of the opposition Labour Party.
According to Onanuga, the protest is aimed at destabilizing President Bola Tinubu’s administration. He also highlighted that Ajaero is fully aware of the troubling financial circumstances that justify the elimination of subsidy, making the strike unwarranted.
He said, “My advice to the perceptive workers and the Nigerian populace is simply to ignore Ajaero and his ilk. He is playing politics and is actually acting the script of the opposition Labour Party, out to destabilise the young Tinubu administration.
“Besides, one wonders whose interest Ajaero is championing, when he did not oppose the position of his Labour Party and presidential candidate, who campaigned with the promise to scrap subsidy from Day One, if elected.
“NLC and TUC leaders knew since last year November that subsidy will be scrapped from July 1 as no provision has been made in the budget for it, beyond this date.
“The Federal Government which already commits 96 percent of its revenue in servicing debt is not in any position to continue selling subsidised fuel, most of which is smuggled across our borders for criminal and obscenely unpatriotic profit.”
Onanuga insisted that the fuel subsidy was no longer sustainable as the FG is virtually broke.
According to him, apart from its N77 trillion debt, the federal government also owed the NNPC Limited about N2.4 trillion for past subsidies.
He said, “The Nigerian people and workers should support the government as it works out new wages and rolls out other interventions, as promised by President Tinubu, to mitigate the effects of the new fuel price.
“Let’s not make ourselves pawns in the hands of the politically biased and tainted NLC and TUC. Ajaero is no more a labour leader. He is a politician and leader of the Labour Party. He is no more representing all the Nigerian workers.”