Prince Adewole Adebayo
The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party SDP at the 2023 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo has lashed at over what he described as the hypocritical attitude of labour unions’ towards the removal of fuel subsidy.
He pointed out all the major political parties during electioneering pledged to remove subsidy, including the Labour Party(LP) wondering why the turned around to criticise the pronouncement by President Bola Tinubu that subsidy was gone.
According to him: “They supported the removal of the subsidy with the political parties. They (labour) are now looking for negotiation and discussion when the government that made that policy was around. They didn’t go for negotiation.”
Adebayo said it was too late for the labour unions to complain about the fuel subsidy removal when they should have tackled the Buhari administration while in office.
He added: “TUC and the Labour were not overseas when the Appropriation Act 2023 was passed. Where were they to engage on that issue? When the debate was still in the open as to whether we should form a government that would remove subsidy or not, they went with the people that said they would remove subsidy. For as long as we continue and allow people to take advantage of the leadership of Nigerian workers, we would not address this issue.
“There are two positions you can take on subsidy. Remove or not to remove. They were on the side of removal. They were also around when the immediate past government passed the PIA. PEGASSAN, the industrial Union representing them, was supporting it. PEGASSAN met in Calabar and said the subsidy must go. In the course of electioneering, the Appropriation Act was passed.”
“They didn’t fight or argue with the government and the government passed the law. If you look at the votes, you would see that the voters voted overwhelmingly for the political parties who said they are going to remove fuel subsidy. They voted for APC, PDP, Labour in that order.”
The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party SDP at the 2023 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo has lashed at over what he described as the hypocritical attitude of labour unions’ towards the removal of fuel subsidy.
He pointed out all the major political parties during electioneering pledged to remove subsidy, including the Labour Party(LP) wondering why the turned around to criticise the pronouncement by President Bola Tinubu that subsidy was gone.
According to him: “They supported the removal of the subsidy with the political parties. They (labour) are now looking for negotiation and discussion when the government that made that policy was around. They didn’t go for negotiation.”
Adebayo said it was too late for the labour unions to complain about the fuel subsidy removal when they should have tackled the Buhari administration while in office.
He added: “TUC and the Labour were not overseas when the Appropriation Act 2023 was passed. Where were they to engage on that issue? When the debate was still in the open as to whether we should form a government that would remove subsidy or not, they went with the people that said they would remove subsidy. For as long as we continue and allow people to take advantage of the leadership of Nigerian workers, we would not address this issue.
“There are two positions you can take on subsidy. Remove or not to remove. They were on the side of removal. They were also around when the immediate past government passed the PIA. PEGASSAN, the industrial Union representing them, was supporting it. PEGASSAN met in Calabar and said the subsidy must go. In the course of electioneering, the Appropriation Act was passed.”
“They didn’t fight or argue with the government and the government passed the law. If you look at the votes, you would see that the voters voted overwhelmingly for the political parties who said they are going to remove fuel subsidy. They voted for APC, PDP, Labour in that order.”
