N5bn palliative won’t solve poverty – NLC

The President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Joe Ajero, has noted that the N5bn palliative package per state as announced by the Federal Government won’t amount to N1500 per person when shared among over 133 million Nigerians who are multi-dimensionally poor.

Ajero, who made this known on Friday in an interview on the Politics Today show on Channels Television, argued that there was no way N185bn would amount to something impactful, when shared among 133 million Nigerians who are multi-dimensionally poor, according to statistics he got from the National Bureau of Statistics.The Labour Union leader maintained that even if the funds were converted to the value of six trailers of rice, it wouldn’t amount to a cup of rice per individual when shared.

He added that from the time of the first increment of pump price for petroleum to the last one, more Nigerians had gone beyond the borderline and had slid into a very high level of poverty.

“Let us assume that it is a palliative and not a loan, you will agree that it is difficult to feel the impact of such an amount at a time like this when the Bureau of Statistics has come up to say that over 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor.

“You start to wonder about the impact of N185bn to 133 million people by their admittance, who are multi-dimensionally poor.

“In fact from the first increase in pump price of petrol and the last one, a lot of people moved from the borderline to a very high level of poverty. If you calculate and do an arithmetic on that, you will discover that it won’t amount to N1500 per person and you ask if that’s the impact that we want to achieve,” he said.