ABUJA — The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) on Wednesday lamented that the country has been in a state of war for over a decade due to insecurity, declaring that kidnapping remains a booming business for criminal elements.
The union said insecurity has undermined government efforts to attract foreign investment and advised the Federal Government to double its efforts in the fight against insecurity.
Briefing journalists after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja, TUC President Comrade Festus Osifo urged the government to strengthen the naira to between ₦700 and ₦800 to one US dollar, saying the high exchange rate remained central to the rising cost of goods, including the petrol pump price.
Osifo said the Federal Government should take decisive steps to end the insecurity ravaging the country.
He noted that while macroeconomic indicators were improving, with inflation gaining some stability and the exchange rate strengthening, the government could do better.
The TUC president recalled that in 2024, the congress presented a 15-point demand to the Federal Government, with the exchange rate at its centre.
“We cannot be tired of talking about the exchange rate because it is central to literally everything. Today, the official rate is just a little above ₦1,300 to the USD, but we see that the government can still do better,” he said.
“We commend CBN Governor Cardoso for the great work he is doing at the Central Bank, but we can still do much more because we still believe that ₦1,300 to $1 is still undervalued.”
Comrade Osifo stressed that the naira should trade between ₦700 and ₦800 to $1, insisting that at ₦1,300 it remains undervalued.
“From all international commentators, from economic think tanks, both local and international, and from scholars, currently our naira is undervalued and is not trading at the strength it should.
“Yes, we knew that before, when it was around ₦400, it was overvalued, but today at ₦1,300 it is still undervalued. So the government should do everything possible to move the naira to the right value,” Osifo said.
He also commiserated with the families of security personnel who died in recent incidents, noting that one of the pilots involved had gotten married just weeks earlier.
On insecurity, Osifo said the TUC wanted the Federal Government to deal decisively with the problem ravaging almost every part of the country.
He said the union was urging the government to provide security agencies with the needed funds and equipment to prosecute the fight against terrorists and bandits, adding that without a stable country there would be no economic progress.
He condemned the incident in Niger State that led to the death of about 37 persons in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), describing it as an aberration.
“We are quite happy that the government immediately swung into action by setting up a committee, but we don’t want the committee’s report to just be another report gathering dust. Whoever is culpable, no matter how highly placed, must be decisively dealt with according to the letter and spirit of the law,” he said.
Addressing the country’s many security challenges, the TUC president said: “First, as you know, gentlemen of the press, today we have been facing the issue of insecurity in our country, maybe in the last 15 years at best.
“And in our last press briefing, we extended a thank you to the DG of the DSS for the great work he has been doing, seeing the number of convictions in recent times, with a number of apprehensions without paying ransom. We still commend him on that.
“And we still wish that they continue on that trajectory. Same with the National Security Adviser; we know that they don’t sleep on a daily basis in order to make the rest of us sleep.
“Having said that, we know, as a country, that we are still faced with a huge level of insecurity. For example, recently, as we all know, the level of kidnapping and killings in the Bakin Ladi area in Plateau State has even increased much more.
“We know very well, for a fact, that in some areas in our country—states like Zamfara, Borno, Katsina, even in the southern part of the country, and Nigeria in general—we have kidnappings still going on as a business.
“We have killings still going on. We have proposed at a time, as the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, that the government should even carry out what we call virement in the budget to move funds to that area to procure the necessary equipment, to procure all the necessary gadgets to wipe out these people once and for all, because Nigeria has been in a state of war for over a decade, and we must stamp this out once and for all.
“It is very difficult to attract foreign investment. It’s very difficult to even get local investors to put their money into the economy where there is this level of uncertainty and this level of insecurity.
“So for us, the government should double its effort. The funds going to fight the state of insecurity should be increased. Yes, we love road construction. Yes, we love investment in power. We love investment in education and so on and so forth. But beyond that, we must first of all live well. We must first of all be alive to enjoy the dividends of the infrastructures—to be able to drive on those roads, to be able to feed and to send our children to school.
“So the protection of life and property should be paramount to any government. Yes, we could see that a lot is being done, but we are encouraging them to do much more.”
On the health sector dispute involving members of the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), Osifo said the union had resolved to send a letter to the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare to hasten action on the workers’ demands.
—By Johnbosco Agbakwuru
