The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has demanded the Nigerian government to immediately reverse its decision on fuel subsidy to status quo.
The TUC President, Mr Festus Osifo, made this known on Friday while addressing newsmen at the end of an emergency meeting of the congress’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja.
Osifo noted that the TUC was unhappy with the unilateral decision of the Nigerian government to remove the subsidy, adding that the TUC’s expectation was that the President Bola Tinubu-led government should have engaged organised labour before taking its decision.
Osifo was quoted as saying, “Having noted this, we wish to state that the NEC-in- session resolved that discussions with the Federal Government should continue while demanding that the government should revert to the status quo ante.
“The status quo ante should be maintained while discussions continue as we had a meeting with the government on Wednesday.
“During that discussion, they gave us a list of all the things they would do and they also demanded to know our thinking and what we are putting up.
“We told them the lists of the things we want to put forward, we will not submit them now but put them forward to our organs, to discuss and seek a mandate from them of the things we can put forward.”
The TUC President said that it is how the government reacts to TUC’s demands that will determine the union’s next line of action.
He said, “We will wait till Sunday when we will meet with the representatives of the government. Once we are done with that meeting then the TUC is going to put its demands forward, it is how they react to those demands that will determine our next line of action.”