Babajide Kolade Otitoju, a veteran journalist, has described as a “bad dream” the call for a return of fuel subsidy by the National Labour Congress (NLC).
The journalist stated this during a popular television show, Journalists’ Hangout, on TVC yesterday.
According to him, returning to the pre-subsidy removal era is a bad dream.
“Nobody will return to the pre-subsidy removal era, except that person wants Nigeria to suffer a physical debt,” he said. “We were hanging on a physical cliff before that decision was made, and when you are at the edge of the cliff, even breeze can blow you and then you find yourself going down.”
Also, the journalist urged the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, to find time and resolve the issues triggering a strike from the NLC.
Babajide narrated that, one of the things triggering the strike from the NLC was a lack of attention from the chief of staff, adding that the union demanded that the former lawmaker be removed due to a lack of attention from him.
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He added that the presidency should find other alternatives or people who can resolve the issue if the chief of staff is busy.
“We must not be in a situation in which an important aide of the president becomes too busy to attend to some matters of state. If he is too busy to attend to some important matters of the state, there are other people that the president can use… In fact, I mentioned it here last week, it was part of the demands that labour came up with when they were protesting… They demanded that Gbajabiamila should be removed that he doesn’t have time for their meetings,” he had said.
The journalist further narrated that, there are no possible ways to resolve the NLC issue if meetings are not convened, adding that the screening of ministerial nominees is over and the chief of staff should find time for meetings.
“They are things that they said that are verifiable. If indeed meetings are difficult to convene, and they have not been having meetings, how will they solve the problem? When are they going to be able to even argue? Thank God the matter of the ministerial nomination has been put to bed now, so he should be able to find the time. He just needs to check because I don’t want to believe that everything they said about him is untrue.”
