Naira Crunch: Comedian, David Sikpa Berates Organised Labour Over Planned Industrial Action

A Port Harcourt based ace comedian ,David Sikpa has condemned recent moves by the Nigeria Labour Congress to embark on nation wide industrial action from Wednesday following the inaccessibility of naira notes in the court.

The Joe Ajaero led NLC has announced its planned nationwide strike beginning from Wednesday, a move described as anti- people.

Sikpa , in a statement issued in Port Harcourt said such moves by the president of the NLC Joe Ajaero is provocative ,counter productive and self serving .

He added that such initiative is anti -people, adding that Nigerians have grown through economic hardship lately to be thrown further into NLC inflicted hardship as a result of the strike action, adding that the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefiele apologied to Nigerians over the hardship experience as a result of its policy and has further advised commercial banks to dispense simultaneously, both old and new currency in obedience with the judgement of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

” Its unfortunate that the NLC intends to embark on this strike ,crying more than the bereaved, when the Governor of the Apex Bank,Godwin Emefiele has tendered unreserved apology to Nigerians and has further given directives to deposit money banks to implement order of the Supreme court.where was NLC when ASUU was on eight months strike and Nigerian students were so helpless, where was NLC when Nigerians were killed for voting for candidates of their choice ,where was NLC when Nigerians were kidnapped and killed randomly by bandits among other insecurity challenges , where was NLC over hike in food stuff ,growing inflation among other economic challenges, where was NLC over various anti -people policy ,where was NLC when it’s members are perpetually denied promotion ,non- payment of salaries and gratituity to pensioners who died every day inability to access their benefits from state governors who are unwilling to pay their entitlement,its reallly a shame that leadership of NLC rather than be on the side of the people is more anti -people than the institution it set out to antagonise”.

Sikpa advised the leadership of NLC to rescind its decision and allow the Central Bank of Nigeria to execute the rulings of the supreme Court ,” According to him, its unfortunate that NLC is mounting this idea now when Nigerians have put behind the agony of the past with optimism of a new beginning, but so worrisome and regrettable an idea of a workers strike is being conceived when the nation is about to witness transition from one government to the other ,or is it a ploy by the Labour Union to truncate and sabotage the transition process ,Sikpa queried.

He further disclosed that Nigerians are adaptive and have acclimatised with the economic challenges and with so much optimism that the issue of naira accessibility has been fully addressed as CBN has further directed commercial and money deposit banks to work through out the weekend to ensure availability and accessibility of naira note by Nigerians.Sikpa added that the CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele has apologied to Nigerians for hardship faced as a result of its policy o. Sikpa who is one of the biggest poultry farmers in Port Harcourt said that the poultry sector was well hit by the cash crunch as there were no cash to produce eggs resulting to very magnitude of losses.

“Farmers were well hit by the cash crunch as there were no cash to procure products ,eggs went bad and were accordingly, its indeed regrettable with the magnitude of losses recorded within the period of CBN naira redesign and yet the Labour union ever protested against so wanton damage to the micro,small and medium scale enterprise across the country ” he said.