NLC Advocates A Maximum of 5% Telecos Tariff Hike Amid Planned Protest

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has again, rejected the 50 per cent telecom tariff hike approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission, proposing a five per cent increase instead.

The country’s labour union also reaffirmed its plan to continue with a nationwide protest on Tuesday, February 4, 2025, to express its opposition to the tariff adjustment.

NLC spokesperson, Benson Upah, made this statement in an interview with press men on Thursday.

“They keep on emasculating us through stupid taxes. It will come to a point when people can pay, but they won’t pay. This really is to halt this mindless tariff increase. And if by any chance there has to be an increase at all, five per cent, given the fact of our situation that there have been increases across the board.o This Happened (EP 258)

“But now to say 50 per cent, it is not going to work. Where will the ordinary Nigerians be at the end of the day when we have energy tariff increases?” he cried out.

Upah continued, “The manufacturers are groaning, the middle-class people are groaning. The ordinary Nigerians on the streets can’t even afford to turn on the lights in their sitting rooms.”

The NLC President, Joe Ajaero, after a National Administrative Council meeting on Wednesday, issued a statement rejecting the hike, labelling it “insensitive, unjustifiable, and a direct assault on Nigerian workers and the general populace.”

The NLC have remained unshaken as regards the planned nationwide protest of February 4, 2025, to rally against the hike, asserting that it would only worsen the hardship Nigerians are already facing.

Reacting to this, the spokesman stated, “We will start with peaceful rallies, and if those peaceful rallies do not work, we will escalate our actions.

The NLC spokesman assured that the protest will be within the ambit of the law and such that will yield profitable results.