…Call On Civil Society Activists, Masses To Challenge Policy
The organised platform of the Nigerian Civil Society Movement also known as the United Action Front of Civil Society Movement has expressed support for the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) over plan to picket the headquarters of electricity distribution companies (DisCos) and Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) across the country following the recent unilateral hike of electricity tariffs by government.
The group, a major pillar of the Labour and Civil Society Front (LCSF), in a press statement on Monday signed by Head, National Coordinating Centre, Olawale Okunniyi noted that it would join the mass action initiated by Labour to call for immediate reversal of the arbitrary anti-people policies in the power sector, stressing that the policies of President Bola Tinubu’s administration have already pushed Nigerians to dire straits.
Okunniyi stated that the recent increase in electricity tariff from N65/KWH to N225/KWH amounts to overstretching the patience of Nigerians.
The statement read, “The organised civil society movement wishes to place it on record that the situation of electricity supply in the country remains appalling with no assurance that DisCos, GenCos and their regulatory agency, NERC are prepared to address the fundamental issues that bother on infrastructure for effective transmission of generated electricity.
“It therefore boils down to utter insensitivity to pretend that hike in electricity tariff would bring about the much-needed solution to the epileptic power supply in the country outside the usual exploitative ploy of those in power to rob the poor to pay the rich, just as the newly introduced segregation of electricity consumers into bands for the purposes of preferential power supply and tariff hike is not only discriminatory but genocidal. Such a policy of segregation is most undemocratic, cruel and reckless.
“Consequently, the United Action Front is compelled at this point to call on all Civil Society Activists and masses of Nigeria to rise and challenge the apartheid policy in the power sector being championed by the Minister of Power, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu.
“We demand the resignation of the Minister for his anti-people posture, which was being arrogantly implemented without signs of genuine concern to the feelings of the people.
“We also call on the NLC and TUC and all well-meaning stakeholders to remain resolute in rejecting the inhuman and callous decision to hike electricity tariff amidst growing poverty and pauperisation of the Nigerian people by those in government and charge Nigerians as well as platforms of organised labour and the civil society to collectively reject any attempt to further impoverish the masses through hike in electricity tariff.
“We wish to place on record that business owners, and in particular manufacturers, who are already suffocating under the burden of prohibitive electricity tariff have finally been further pushed into the abyss by the recent hike, which has forced a number of companies to either suspend operations or shut down permanently with consequences of job losses and further excruciating poverty in the country.
“We wish to call on stakeholders in the private sectors to lend voices of support to the intervention of Labour in the ongoing struggle to reject the hostile and retrogressive policy of electricity hike which is bound to worsen the economic crisis of the country by forcing manufacturers and small and medium scale entrepreneurship to fold up with increase in job losses and further depletion of household economy and survival,” he added.
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