Blackout looms as electricity workers ready for nationwide strike
A blackout seems likely as electricity workers have declared they would be joining the countrywide strike called by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to protest petrol subsidy removal.
Labour has, as at last week, fixed August 2 notice for the commencement of the strike action even as they are schedule for talks with the government on Monday.
Dominic Igwebuike, the acting general of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), had said in a report that the strike would go as planned, should the talks between the parties failed.
“Electricity workers, as an affiliate of the NLC, will partake in the mass protest.
“So, all the workers in the power sector will join the mass protest on Wednesday, August 2, 2023,” he said. Dominic stated the action would plunge the country into a blackout so far as the government remains intransigent about its dispute with labour.
“The government should listen to the Nigerian masses who are going through serious suffering right now. That is the only thing we are asking for. So, for now, the protest is going to hold, unless there is a further directive from the NLC,” he added.
TheCornet reports that shutting down power supply and at the same time crippling other strategic sectors will very much hurt the struggling Nigerian economy.
Government’s decision to remove the subsidy has seen the pump price of petrol rise and a corresponding increase in transportation and food cost too.
The government maintains its defence that subsidy was a revenue drain hole and it rather benefitted only a few powerful persons, while the subsidized petroleum was being sold in black markets across Nigeria’s borders.
