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NLC Warns: Insecurity and Poverty Pushing Nigerians to Brink — Ajaero Says "Survival, Not Productivity, Is Now the Priority" as Finance Minister Rules Out Fuel Subsidy Return
NLC President Joe Ajaero addressed the press in Abuja on Wednesday, warning that insecurity and poverty are pushing Nigerian workers to the breaking point.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has issued its starkest warning yet about the state of the nation, declaring that rising insecurity, deepening poverty, and a crushing economic environment have combined to push millions of Nigerian workers to the brink — a point where survival, not productivity, has become the overriding priority. In a sombre address delivered at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, May 6, NLC President Joe Ajaero painted a harrowing picture of a workforce paralysed by fear, displacement, and diminishing purchasing power. His remarks came just hours after Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele definitively ruled out any return of the fuel subsidy, dashing hopes that the government might ease the cost‑of‑living crisis that has defined the last two years.
The convergence of the NLC's warning and the government's firm stance on subsidy removal sets the stage for a potential showdown between organised labour and the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. With the 2027 elections now on the horizon, the government is betting that its economic reforms will bear fruit in time to win back public confidence; the NLC, however, is warning that time is running out — and that the social fabric is fraying faster than the macro‑economic numbers suggest.
"Survival Has Replaced Productivity"
Ajaero's central message was as simple as it was devastating. "The Nigerian worker today is not thinking about productivity. The Nigerian worker is thinking about survival," he told journalists. "When a worker leaves home in the morning and does not know whether he will return alive in the evening because of insecurity; when he earns a salary that cannot cover his transport to work and back; when his children are being sent home from school because he cannot pay fees — you cannot talk to that worker about economic growth. Survival, not productivity, is now the priority."
The NLC president methodically laid out the dimensions of the crisis. On insecurity, he noted that workers in farming communities across the North‑West, North‑Central, and parts of the South‑East have been driven from their lands by bandits, kidnappers, and separatist violence, disrupting agricultural supply chains and forcing many into urban unemployment. He cited the case of a local government worker in Katsina State who told the union he had been kidnapped twice in the last year and was now forced to pay a monthly "protection levy" to local gangs simply to tend his family's farm. "That is not a worker. That is a hostage," Ajaero said. "And the government must understand that an economy built on hostages cannot grow."
On poverty, the numbers are grim. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, over 133 million Nigerians are classified as multidimensionally poor, and inflation — which stood at 35.4% as of March 2026 — has eroded the real value of wages to levels not seen in a generation. Ajaero contrasted the government's revenue figures, buoyed by subsidy removal and improved oil exports, with the lived experience of workers. "We are told revenue has increased. We are told the economy is on a recovery path. But the worker sees none of this. The worker sees the price of bread, the price of transport, the price of medicine. Where is the revenue going? Why has it not translated into wages people can live on?"
Oyedele's Hard Line: No Return to Subsidy
If workers were hoping for a reprieve, Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele offered none. Speaking at a separate event in Lagos on Wednesday, Oyedele insisted that the federal government would not reverse its fuel subsidy removal policy, which has been the single biggest driver of the cost‑of‑living crisis since it was implemented in June 2023. "There is no scenario under which this administration will return to the subsidy regime," Oyedele said. "It was a corrupt, wasteful, and economically unsustainable system that primarily benefited smugglers and neighbouring countries. We are not going back."
The minister acknowledged the pain felt by Nigerians — "we know it is difficult," he said — but argued that the alternatives were worse. According to him, the funds saved from subsidy removal, estimated at over ₦3 trillion annually, have been channelled into infrastructure, education, and social investment programmes that will yield long‑term benefits. He pointed to the student loan scheme, the wage award for civil servants, and targeted cash transfers to the most vulnerable as evidence that the government was not indifferent to suffering. However, Ajaero was having none of it. "The social investment programmes are a drop in the ocean," he countered. "The worker hears about trillions saved, but what he experiences is a daily struggle. You cannot run an economy on promises while people are dying."
The Taxation Burden: "Workers Are Being Over‑Taxed"
Beyond insecurity and poverty, Ajaero identified the country's tax regime as a growing burden on workers — a concern that aligns with complaints from small businesses and middle‑class professionals. He argued that workers are being subjected to an escalating array of deductions and levies, from Pay‑As‑You‑Earn (PAYE) tax to the recently introduced cybersecurity levy, to state‑level consumption taxes, all while their real incomes shrink. "The level of taxation now is a problem," he said. "You have a worker earning minimum wage, and before he even touches his salary, multiple deductions have been made. Then you tell him to pay tax for roads he does not see, for security he does not enjoy, for water he does not receive. What is left for him to survive?"
He called on the government to conduct a comprehensive review of the tax system, with a view to reducing the burden on low‑ and middle‑income earners while improving compliance among the wealthy and corporate entities. "There is too much pressure on the formal sector worker who already has his tax deducted at source, while the informal sector and the super‑rich exploit loopholes. This must change." The Minister of Finance, for his part, has previously stated that tax reforms are under way, including the work of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, but the timeline for full implementation remains unclear — and for workers struggling to make ends meet, patience is wearing thin.
A Government Between Reform and Revolt
The Tinubu administration is walking a tightrope. On one side, it has staked its reputation on making difficult, long‑overdue economic decisions — removing the subsidy, floating the naira, and pursuing tax reforms — that international financial institutions and many economists have long advocated. The results, in macroeconomic terms, are mixed: GDP growth has ticked upward modestly, the current account has improved, and oil revenue has increased. But the microeconomic reality — the price of a bag of rice, the cost of transportation, the anxiety of a parent receiving a school fee demand — tells a different story, and it is the microeconomic reality that determines how people vote.
Organised labour, under Ajaero's leadership, is showing signs of reasserting itself after a period of relative quiet. The NLC has been careful not to call for a nationwide strike in recent months — the memory of the August 2023 protests, which were repressed by security forces, is still fresh — but it has not ruled out the possibility. Ajaero's language on Wednesday was carefully calibrated: it was a warning, not a declaration of war. "We are not calling for action today, but we are saying today that the situation cannot continue indefinitely. Workers will not continue to be spectators in their own immiseration. Something must give."
Whether that "something" will be a policy adjustment — such as a more robust wage increase, a reduction in petrol prices through refined local production, or tax relief — or a confrontational one depends largely on how the government reads the political calendar. With 2027 approaching, the administration may calculate that additional pain relief is necessary to avoid alienating voters. Or it may bet that the reforms will begin to show tangible benefits in time. Either way, the NLC has signalled that it will not sit quietly on the sidelines.
The Human Cost of Reform
The NLC's message this week cuts through the noise of political positioning to the core of Nigeria's economic challenge: reforms, however necessary, are judged not by spreadsheets but by survival. As long as workers feel that their survival is being threatened — by insecurity, by inflation, by a tax system they see as punitive — the gap between official economic optimism and everyday despair will widen. The Tinubu administration has chosen its course; the NLC has served notice that the workers are watching. Whether that watchful stance translates into industrial action, political mobilisation, or both, will depend on what the government does next. For now, Ajaero's warning hangs over Abuja like a gathering storm.
Stay tuned to Unuevbo TV for more analysis on labour‑government relations, Nigeria's economic reform pain, and the voices shaping the national debate ahead of 2027.
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