NLC proposes 5% telecoms tariff hike, insists on protest

The Nigeria Labour Congress has once more rejected the 50 per cent telecom tariff hike authorised by the Nigerian Communications Fee, proposing a 5 per cent improve as an alternative.

The nation’s labour union additionally reaffirmed its plan to proceed with a nationwide protest on Tuesday, February 4, 2025, to precise its opposition to the tariff adjustment.

NLC spokesman Benson Upah acknowledged this throughout an interview on Channels Tv’s Dawn  Each day on Thursday.

“They carry on emasculating us by silly taxes. It should come to some extent when individuals pays, however they gained’t pay. This actually is to halt this senseless tariff improve. And if by any likelihood there must be a rise in any respect, 5 per cent, given the very fact of our state of affairs that there have been will increase throughout the board.

“However now to say 50 per cent, it’s not going to work. The place will the bizarre Nigerians be on the finish of the day when we’ve vitality tariff will increase?” he mentioned.

Upah continued, “The producers are groaning, the middle-class persons are groaning. The bizarre Nigerians on the streets can’t even afford to activate the lights of their sitting rooms. When taxes are low, extra individuals than when you will have excessive taxes.”

On Wednesday, after a Nationwide Administrative Council assembly, the NLC President Joseph Ajaero issued a communiqué rejecting the hike, labelling it “insensitive, unjustifiable, and a direct assault on Nigerian staff and the final populace.”

The NLC mentioned it could transfer ahead with a nationwide protest on February 4, 2025, to rally towards the hike, asserting that it could solely worsen the monetary challenges confronted by residents.

Reacting to this, the spokesman acknowledged, “We’ll begin with peaceable rallies, and if these peaceable rallies don’t work, we are going to escalate our actions.

“Our actions can be cheap and inside the ambit of the legislation. It will be efficient, and there might be mass actions, the sort we in all probability haven’t seen earlier than.”

On January 20, the NCC introduced its approval of a 50 per cent tariff improve for telecom operators, citing rising operational prices and the need to take care of business sustainability.

In an announcement signed by the NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, the Fee emphasised that the choice aligns with its regulatory obligations beneath Part 108 of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003.