Ahead of a scheduled walkout over the shortage of naira notes across the nation, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has instructed employees to report banks that are not issuing currency to its state councils.
The National Executive Council, NEC, of the NLC will convene on Tuesday to make a final decision regarding the planned nationwide strike for Wednesday.
It was gathered that the NLC gave the directive last weekend after its NEC meeting on Friday, where affiliate unions and state councils of the NLC were directed to monitor the cash situation and how banks were dispensing naira notes to workers.
The President of NLC, Joe Ajaero on Sunday said, “Our affiliate unions and state councils were directed to monitor the situation. Workers have been directed to report banks not dispensing cash to NLC state offices.
”Our state councils and affiliate unions are to report back to us the prevailing situations in their states by Tuesday, when we will hold another NEC meeting. The report we get from them will determine our next line of action.
”In fact, the seven days ultimatum we gave will expire on Tuesday, March 28. The report will determine our final decision. As we speak, I am out on the streets of Abuja monitoring the situation.
”I am aware also that officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, were in Lagos on Saturday and Sunday to monitor the situation.”
According to the information obtained, the nationwide strike will consist of sit-at-home protests at the CBN headquarters and all of its offices nationwide on March 29, 2023. If a strike were to start, it would go on until all Nigerians had access to cash.
Femi Falana SAN, the National Chairman of ASCAB, has expressed solidarity with the NLC’s move to picket CBN offices in every state and support the proposed stay-at-home action. He has declared this initiative to be necessary and overdue. Furthermore, he has offered assistance in order to make sure that these plans are properly implemented.
According to him, “These are for the decision to call for action by your members over the lingering cash crisis. We hope that this action will be implemented, as planned, and as soon as possible, as we cannot over-emphasise the trauma that the lingering cash restriction policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is causing, especially to poor families.”
Meanwhile, the CBN met with the leaders of the NLC on Thursday last week to brief them on the efforts of the apex bank to stabilise the current situation across the country.
The two-person delegation, which included the deputy governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) responsible for operations and economic policy, informed the NLC leaders that about N20 billion was sent out last Thursday, with Lagos and Abuja receiving N4 billion and N2 billion, respectively, in an effort to alleviate the shortage.