• Tell Tinubu to tackle hunger, insecurity, Emir of Kano urges First Lady
• Release grains to people to tame rising costs of food, Barau to governors, LG bosses
• Buhari’s reckless policies responsible for current hardship – Oshiomhole
• They were silent during Buhari’s eight years, Adeyanju tackles northern religious, traditional leaders 
 
As more citizens feel the pangs of hunger amid increasing hardship over rising cost of food, indications have emerged that the organised labour is jettisoning its earlier recommendation of N200,000 new minimum wage for N1 million.

   
This new benchmark, according to president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, becomes imperative against the background of the country’s galloping inflation, citing the soaring price of food items and inflationary pressure in the economy.
   
Ajaero, who spoke on national television, said: “You will recall that by the time we were contemplating N200,000 as minimum wage, the exchange rate was about N800/N900 to a dollar. As we speak today, the exchange rate is about N1,500. So, our N1 million demand may be relevant if the value of the naira continues to depreciate because our demand is dependent on what is happening in the society. 
   
“Now, those are the issues that determine the demand, and it is equally affecting the cost of living and we have always said that our demands will be based on the cost-of-living index.”
   
As a matter of urgency, labour is urging the Federal Government to begin immediate implementation of the agreements entered on October 2, 2023. Labour stated its position yesterday during a meeting with the Federal Government, where it discussed resolutions around the 14-day ultimatum issued by both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) last week.
   
He further said: “We are not talking of a minimum wage that will not be enough for transportation even for one week. It is not just that they want to give us a minimum wage, the old minimum wage will expire by April. Ordinarily, the Federal Government ought to have set up the committee six months before that time so that negotiation would have commenced, but up till now, the Federal Government committee hasn’t been set up to talk less of sitting.
   
“So, it appears we are going to work within one month or two to agree on a figure, and I doubt how this is going to work, especially when you look at the people that the Federal Government assembled as members of the committee.   
   
“They looked at some of the governors that are not even paying the existing minimum wage in their states and even nominated a minister of budget who didn’t implement the minimum wage as a governor. Now, if you have the people in the government team on the issue of minimum wage, some of us are not seeing a bright future in the work of this new minimum wage committee.”
   
The labour leader further slammed the government for providing grains as palliatives for citizens, describing it as an insult to Nigerians.  Driving the message home of the current hardship in the country, the Emir of Kano, Aminu Bayero, yesterday called on the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, to press her husband, President Bola Tinubu, to address urgent issues like hunger, starvation, and insecurity plaguing the country and worsening by the day. The Emir made the plea when Tinubu’s wife visited him in Kano.
   
“Although we have several means of communicating to the government on our needs and requests, your way and means is the surest way to tell the President the actual happenings in the country,” Bayero, who spoke through an interpreter, told the First Lady.
   
The monarch said the hunger crisis “has become more alarming and needs urgent attention.” He also urged Tinubu’s wife to push the president to tackle escalating insecurity. “The issue of insecurity is another serious problem we are facing. I know this government inherited it, but something more serious should be done to take care of the threats,” Bayero stated .
   
Mrs Tinubu was in Kano to inaugurate a faculty of law building named after the president at Maryam Abacha American University of Nigeria, Kano.  
The first-class traditional ruler also decried the relocation of some federal organisations from Abuja to Lagos, insisting that Nigerians demand to know the rationale behind the move.  
   
Responding, Mrs Tinubu, who acknowledged that the nation was going through a tough economic situation, said her husband was taking necessary mechanisms to fix the quagmire.  She explained that removal of fuel subsidy was not intended to create hardship to Nigeria, pleading to Nigerians to bear with the situation ahead of better days. 

DISTURBED by rising cost of living ravaging the country, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin (APC, Kano North), has called on the 36 governors and chairmen of the 774 local government areas to as a matter of urgency, release grains to the people as part of moves to alleviate the pains Nigerians are going through.
   
In a statement on Monday, the Deputy Senate President hailed President Tinubu for ordering the release of 102,000 tonnes of rice, maize, millet and others to address the high cost of food in the country. The Federal Government had through the Special Presidential Committee on Emergency Food Intervention, headed by the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, last week, ordered the release of 102,000 tonnes of grains to Nigerians.
   
Barau, while hailing President Tinubu for the directive, said the move would go a long way in cushioning the effects of the rising cost of commodities in the country. It is against this background that he called on governors and local council chairmen to emulate the Federal Government by releasing grains to the needy in the country.
   
On his own, Barau disclosed that in the coming days, he would distribute rice to 200,000 households as part of his contributions to address the challenge.
   
Meanwhile, the Senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, has said Nigerians are currently suffering from what he described as “reckless policies” of former President Muhammadu Buhari. 
   
Re-echoing the position of the former Central Bank governor and Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the former Edo State governor and APC national chairman said he protested some of the policies that he said were designed to dehumanise the population that was already in pain.
   
While speaking on Channels Television, Oshiomhole said the current hardship being witnessed under the current administration were the long-term consequences of those policies of Buhari’s administration.
   
He said: “My first loyalty is to Nigeria. At some point, before the last President left office, I lamented loudly what I saw as reckless policies that were designed to dehumanise the population that was already in pain. I felt that it was not what the then-president promised. I dissociated myself from those policies and I’m happy that I was not the only one.
   
“There were governors who approached the court to denounce some of those policies. It is the long-term consequences of those policies that we are still grappling with now.”
   
He added that President Tinubu should not be held responsible for whatever decisions embarked upon by the previous government. “Yes, it is our party platform. Like Tinubu also said, he was not a minister or adviser. He never took a contract in that government and he cannot be held responsible for what the government did right or wrong,” he said.
   
Sanusi had earlier said it was an injustice to blame the administration of President Tinubu for the current economic hardship the country is facing, adding that the country is battling a failing economy due to mismanaged economic policies of the past eight years.
   
“If I am to be fair and just to President Bola Tinubu, he is not to blame for the current hardship; for eight years, we were living a fake lifestyle with huge debt from foreign and domestic debts. The Central Bank of Nigeria owes over N30 trillion, which resulted in debt service surpassing 100 per cent.

“I can’t join other Nigerians criticising Tinubu on the current economic hardship, and I am not saying he is a saint-free from wrongdoing, but in this current economic situation, President Tinubu is not to be blamed. I will also speak if I see any wrong economic policy of the Tinubu administration in the future,” he said.
   
Amid the hardship in Nigeria, Deji Adeyanju, a sociopolitical activist, has slammed religious leaders in northern Nigeria over their silence during the administration of former President Buhari.  
   
Reacting to the remarks by the Emir, he said “May God bless Sarkin Kano. But why did all the religious and traditional leaders in the North refuse to speak truth to power like this during Buhari’s eight-year disastrous regime? Not once did they speak truth to power. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi tried, but he was removed as king.”