Comrade Joseph Ajaero has emerged as the new national president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

This followed a consensus arrangement by delegates participating in the 13th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of Congress.

Ajaero, who was the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), succeeded Comrade Ayuba Wabba who served as National President of the NLC for eight years.

Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday, the new NLC President, who expressed concern over the level of frustration Nigerians were being made to undergo due to petrol and naira scarcity, vowed to mobilise the members of the public union if the government failed to address the issue by the end of next week.

He said: “NLC shall continue in its tradition of ensuring that Nigerians are protected from all anti-people policies and that plunder in governance are reduced to the barest minimum while government is assisted to work for the majority.

“We shall therefore robustly engage government to stop the impunity and pervasive wickedness currently going on in the country in the name of petroleum product pricing.

“The usurpation and use of state power to impoverish the citizenry abuses the ideals of democracy and destroys the nation.

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“Governance ought to provide comfort for the citizenry, so it pains us to witness the increasing frustrations Nigerians have had to go through in the last few months just to fuel their cars and generators, the new phenomenon of black market Naira-buying our own monies at a discount from illegal brokers.

“Governance in Nigeria seems to have broken all known records for bad governance. We will definitely not keep quiet in the face of this deliberate defilement of citizenship by the ruling elite as we may mobilise variously across the nation to nudge the government to act more responsibly towards the citizenry and seek ways of alleviating the suffering that currently walks our streets with arrogance.

“We will definitely not keep quiet in the face of this deliberate defilement of citizenship by the ruling elite as we may mobilise variously across the nation to nudge the government to act more responsibly towards the citizenry and seek ways of alleviating the suffering that currently walks our streets with arrogance.”

On high electricity tariff, Ajaero noted that “the current electricity tariff and provisioning remains stacked against Nigerian workers and masses and we shall therefore work with government to bring sanity to bear to that sector. We urge the federal government again to review the privatisation of the electricity sector; a process both the government and all of us have agreed was mired in corruption.”

Ajaero urged Nigerians to ensure they only vote for candidates with competence and character to protect and secure their lives and welfare when they go to the polls.

“As Nigerians, we must not allow them divide us along religious and regional lines. Our demands on the Nigerian State are basically the same. We have unwaveringly asked for a secure nation where we can move freely and carry out our daily activities without violently losing our lives and properties.

“We have demanded equity and fairness in the sharing of our nation’s resources, more functional and accessible education system for our children, Increasing access to high quality medical care, high quality road infrastructure, increasing access to nutrition and generally elevating the factors that increases human wellbeing. We should therefore vote the candidates who have the Competence and character to deliver on these demands come February and March,” he added.

The Star