CSO Backs Labour, Declares August 2nd Citizens’ Action Day

The United Action Front of Civil Society has yesterday declared its support for the call for nationwide protests by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), on August 2, 2023.

They said NLC’s decision as conveyed in a communique at the end of its Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting held on July 25, 2023 and subsequently reinforced by its National Executive Council (NEC) is a clarion call to salvage the country from the consuming miseries unleashed by the new regime in Nigeria and possibly to prevent military intervention in Nigeria as currently being witnessed in other West African countries.

The group, in a statement signed by the head, national coordinating centre,

United Action Front of Civil Society, Olawale Okunniyi, said they endorse and align with the nationwide protests scheduled to commence from Wednesday, August 2, 2023, as the federal government continues to watch Nigerians go through needless anguish as a result of unabated corruption and reckless impunity of the political elite and their cronies.

They however called on all Nigerians to rally support for the Labour movement and the broad coalition of the organized civil society under the United Action Front of Civil Society of Nigeria in making a massive statement against the new anti-poor government of the APC.

They said Nigeria belongs to the citizens adding that the poor truly deserve to breathe and not be subjected to asphyxiation under the guise of fuel subsidy removal or any imposed economic agenda of their allied international finance cartel.

The organized platform of the Nigerian civil society notes with grave concern attempts by the government through its agent provocateurs to paint the planned nationwide protests as threat to national security as well as contempt to their arm twistingcourt restraining order.

“We make bold to say that the call to action by Labour and its Civil Society allies is borne out of patriotic concern for the survival of the downtrodden, who have been trampled and frustrated into submission by the anti-people policies that are currently being mindlessly implemented without sensitivity and human face.

“Part of the plot to frustrate the national protests is the false claim relating to a supposed court order stopping the NLC from organizing strike action over subsidy removal. We wish to assert that the call for a national citizens’ action is within the ambit of the democratic rights of citizens to organize and engage in peaceful and orderly manner to demonstrate their rejection of anti people’s policies.

“We therefore call on the government to desist from sponsoring the fifth columnist to circumvent peaceful protests or instigate wicked propaganda to blackmail the leadership of the LabourMovement and their allies, as the organized civil society is also not unaware of elements being sponsored to blackmail Labourand its Civil Society allies.

“We are not oblivious of the grand conspiracy of the fifth columnists masquerading as voices of the people but whose ultimate intention is to coerce key leaders of the planned Mass protest into abandoning the patriotic intervention to salvage the country from the brewing crisis being instigated through the anti-people policies and disposition of the Tinubu’s administration.

“It is indeed alarming that the new government has remained unperturbed by the crushing pains of the overwhelming majority of Nigerians.

“The organized civil society therefore agrees with the NLC that the administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu has continued in an unholy mission of robbing the poor to pay the rich in Nigeria as typified by its continued frustration of the activation of the agreed alternatives to Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) as well as the latest hike in prices of PMS to N617 per litre,” the statement reads.