The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has knocked the Federal Government for providing grains as a palliative for the food insecurity plaguing the country.
Recall that President Tinubu had ordered the immediate release of 102,000 metric tonnes of rice, maize, and millet from government reserves and stores of the rice millers to the Nigerian market.
Speaking in an interview on Arise News on Sunday, the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said that it is an insult to Nigerians for the government to release grains to address the level of hunger and poverty in the nation.
Ajaero said Nigerians do not need grain palliatives because they are not pigeons or birds.
He also asked the government to find a solution to the economic hardship facing the people.
He said: “I feel sad when we talk of the federal government giving people grains as if we are giving grains to pigeons and all these other birds. At this time and age in Nigeria, we are talking of the federal government providing how many tonnes of grains to Nigerians as a measure of stemming the level of hunger and poverty in the country. I beg to disagree that that is a serious insult to Nigerians I think that we should think of something else.
“If somebody is telling us that it is going to start work today and tomorrow, have they kept the promise? That is the question. Heck no. I think the issue of trust should be paramount in whatever we do as a government and as a people. If we look at the end of every Federal Executive Council meeting, we will discover that the Federal Executive Council meeting seems to have transformed into a procurement committee… not directly on policy issues.
“Even when they had agreements with organised labour, with Nigerians, such meetings don’t come out with clear statements on how to implement them, and I am getting worried. So, when Nigerians are hungry, you give them some bags of grains as a solution, that’s not what we need at this point in time.”
