Chris Ngige, the minister of labour and employment, and Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), met with the NLC leadership on Monday in an effort to prevent a national strike by the NLC.
The NLC leadership has given the Federal Government a seven-day deadline to solve the nation’s naira shortage. If the matter was not resolved by the deadline, NLC President Joe Ajaero has threatened to call a strike by the Congress.
Ngige then requested a meeting on Monday with the NLC and the executive of the apex bank to discuss the issue.
Olajide Oshundun, the ministry of labour and employment’s director of press and public relations, revealed this in a statement.
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“The ten-man delegation of the NLC was led by the President, Comrade Joe Ajaero and the General Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja while the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele was accompanied by two Deputy Governors, Kingsley Obiora (Economic Policy) and Ade Shonubi (Organised Private Sector)”.
In his remarks, the minister denied the NLC’s claim that his ministry did nothing to address the issue, saying that after receiving the NLC’s letter, he forwarded it to the CBN governor before leaving the country for an ILO Governing Board meeting and gave the Permanent Secretary and Trade Union Services and Industrial Relations Department instructions to follow up.
Emefiele said that after receiving the letter from the Labour Ministry, he phoned the NLC President to inform him of the actions done to lessen the suffering of the masses. He also scheduled an appointment to speak with the NLC President and claims that the meeting was productive.
The CBN Governor claims that the deposit money banks received a sizable amount of money and were instructed to open their branches on Saturdays and Sundays. The deposit money banks cooperated under under CBN monitoring, and as a result of the actions taken, Nigerians are now enjoying their money.
Ajaero had earlier claimed that they had only received an invitation to the meeting after the ministry responded to their second letter.
Since the CBN began transferring money to the banks and Nigerians could now access their money, he said that they do not anticipate any problems. He also recognised that discussions had been held in an atmosphere conducive to constructive discussion.
He regretted the information vacuum caused in the execution of, but asked the CBN to enhance their services.
“NLC could not have stopped CBN from taking good decisions and implementing them in the interest of the nation. If stakeholders were invited and briefed on the policy, when the people complain, NLC would explain everything to them. But in this case, the CBN did it alone. Moreover, it is a wrong time for administering such a national policy,” Ajaero was quoted as saying.
