The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has appealed to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) not to embark on its planned nationwide strike to protest the fuel subsidy removal.
OsunDaily News recall that the Labour Union had kicked against the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu and also against the hike in the pump price of petrol by the NNPCL.
Speaking on Sunday shortly after a special โThanksgiving Serviceโ at the Cathedral Church of Christ in Marina, Lagos, the governor said going on strike will neither address nor resolve any issue.
Sanwo-Olu said โThis is not the time to go on strike. Recall that all presidential candidates said the first thing they will do is remove fuel subsidy. So what has changed? What has President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said or done that is different from what others would have done?
โThe president has not even spent one week in office. We need to be very patient and reason together. Let us not make the issue about politics, but letโs support this man. We should allow him to go and reflect.
โStrike will not resolve anything; it wonโt address the issue. The point should be how to ensure a sustained turnaround in our economy.
โThe president mentioned better wages, and we started that in Lagos in January, and I hope other states can key into it.
โWe donโt need to wait for the national government, we just need to reflect on what the challenges are in the country and seek ways to resolve them.
โSo I plead with the NLC to not turn the subsidy issue into a political one. The leadership should know they are leading people and so there is a need to restrain themselves.
โLet us be patient and work with the president. NNPC has said it has more than enough fuel to go around, so there is no need to heat up the polity.
โWe should not get political because it is governance, and the people must see purposeful governance.
ย โIt is important to thank God Almighty and to acknowledge his help to all of us, as individuals, as a state, as a nation, and to also commit our second tenure to him, to ask him for direction and to place everything in his front.
โLagosians should also expect a lot more from us. We have promised a human-centric THEMES PLUS agenda which will ensure no one is left behind.
โWe want to build a better inclusive sense of governance where we will be doing a lot of hard and soft infrastructure, things that will touch the peopleโs lives, specifically palliatives that would bring succour and relief to our citizens in their difficult times, especially with the global economic issues.
โThe people also need to understand that though, government cannot do everything, we need to be able to bring them out of poverty and speak to what their needs and yearnings are.
โSo itโs a purpose human-centric agenda that will ensure that no one is left behind. And we are holding ourselves accountable to that.โ
Watch the governor in the video below: