TheCable

The Presidential steering committee on palliatives, comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC), and government representatives, is currently meeting at the chief of staff conference hall in Aso Rock, Abuja.

The meeting comes amid threats of a nationwide strike by the NLC over the gruelling economic hardship that followed the petrol subsidy removal.

The organised labour had stormed out of a similar meeting last Friday, claiming that there were no top government officials to negotiate with them, thereby accusing the government of not being serious.

The botched meeting was to take briefings from three subcommittees of mass transit, compressed natural gas (CNG), and cash transfer, which the government had proposed to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal.

Present at the ongoing meeting are Joe Ajaero, president of the NLC; Festus Osifo, his TUC counterpart, Emma Ugbaja, the general secretary of the NLC; Nuhu Toro, the TUC secretary, and other members of the organised labour delegation including Sam Amadi, former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

Representatives of the government include Femi Gbajabiamila, chief of staff to the president; Kachollom Daju, permanent secretary, ministry of labour and employment; Mele Kyari, the group chief executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPCL); Olu Verheijen, the special adviser to the president on energy, among others.