ABUJA – President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has advised President Bola Tinubu to look out for leaders planning to stage protest over the prevailing hardship in the country for talks, as it is their right to protest if they so wish. Ajaero in a statement he crafted personally and sent to the media in Abuja on Monday, said the truth is that millions of Nigerians are angry about the state of the national economy. According to the NLC boss, a situation where most Nigerian families are forced to eat one miserable meal a day and eating from the dustbin is now seen as luxury beckons for serious intervention by government.
While corroborating a recent country living standards index assessment by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which established that about 133 million Nigerians live below extreme poverty lines, Ajaero said the International Rescue Committee (IRC) posits that in the first three quarters of 2024, about 32 million Nigerians have been exposed to acute hunger. In his words, when this statistics is added to the millions that are being recruited into the armies of the unemployed and under-employed Nigerians, one can easily situate the hardship, pain, frustrations and despair that many Nigerians are going through right now. He said, “The truth is that Nigerians have been hard pushed and super pressed right against the walls of deep deprivation and acute want.
“It is, therefore, condescending and dismissive .