Goli Innocent 
The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has issued a 10-point demand for President Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government, saying the past year was one long, agonising litany of missed opportunities and dashed hopes.
According to the Labour Union, given the current state of the porous economy, Nigerians have little optimism and are still expecting to experience the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Tinubu’s government.
This was contained in its New Year statement issued on Wednesday by its president and Secretary-General, Festus Osifo and Nuhu Toro.
Issuing its 10-point demand, the union said all agreements between labour and government, including payment of monthly N35,000 wage award to public servants in local, state and federal services, must be implemented until a new national minimum wage is implemented.
TUC also asked that a new national minimum wage must be negotiated, and implemented and if further delayed in the year, arrears must be paid.
The union recalled that in 2023, it strived to ensure that social dialogue with the Federal Government prevailed even when there were skeptics, who alleged the Tinubu administration could not be trusted to implement simple and basic agreements.
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To allay the fears, it said organised labour insisted that the October 2, 2023 agreement between them and the administration be notarised, however, it accused the government of serially violating the pact.
Quoting item two, which states that “A minimum wage committee shall be inaugurated within one month from the date of this agreement,” TUC regretted that three months after, no such panel has been set up by the government.
“This was also our experience with this government in at least two previous agreements reached from June 2023,” it added.
The union demanded that inflation, which is currently at 28.20 per cent, must be drastically reduced to sub-Saharan Africa’s regional average of 9.4 per cent.
It said government at the state and federal levels should stop the “unnecessary, economically unwise and unpatriotic tradition of taking loans, especially when the loans only end up being used to purchase expensive jeeps for legislators, pamper members of the executive and their spouses, or in building unnecessary offices and purchasing mundane and sundry things, including stationeries.”
TUC urged the government to stop “its ill-advised devaluation of the national currency that is precipitating collapse of local industries, which need foreign exchange to import raw materials.”
It equally demanded that the high price of PMS at N617 per litre should be drastically reduced to undo the harm to the national economy.
This, the body said, would be achieved by ensuring local production of refined products.
The congress lamented that the N28.7 trillion budget, with a recurrent expenditure of N9.92 trillion, capital expenditure at N8.7 trillion and debt servicing of N8.25 trillion, could neither stimulate economic growth nor alleviate suffering Nigerians.
TUC said having a careful and critical dissection of the budget would easily reveal that it was primarily and essentially designed to take care of the ruling class.
However, it expressed that the union remains optimistic that with sincere, committed, responsible and responsive leadership, “we should be able to change the narrative and reverse this trend.”
