Labour leaders in Jos suffered rejection in the market place in the course of talking traders into joining the protest.
Some members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) were stoned at the Terminus main market area of Jos city yesterday when they tried to mobilise traders to embark on a strike action scheduled for today.
Daily Trust gathered from witness that members of the labour union had arrived the market area in an 18-seater bus and a Jeep and began to announce to traders through a loudspeaker not to open their shops today but were told off by the traders.
Auwal Mohammed, a vendor in the area, told our correspondent that some youths had surrounded the union members and began to chant in Hausa, ‘Karya kukeyi,’ meaning, ‘You are liars,’ accusing the unionists of being sell-outs and pelting them.
However, the State NLC Chairman, Jibril Banchir, later sent a text message, saying the news of attack on his members at the Terminus area was not true.
In Kaduna, a former governor, Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (rtd) backed the deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.
Umar said in a statement that the deregulation by the federal government was welcome.
Umar, who is chairman of the Movement For Unity And Progress (MUP), described Federal Government’s action as a ‘needful policy’.
And in Enugu State, a pressure group, the South East, South South Professionals (SESSP), said it was supporting the Federal Government on the removal of fuel subsidy and the resultant hike in the pump price of petrol.
The President of SESSP, Mr. Emeka Ugwu-Oju, cautioned the leaders of organised labour that instead of embarking on any kind of protest, they should cooperate with the government to ensure that the ordinary Nigerians eventually benefit from the removal of subsidy and deregulation of the market.
Taking a similar position in Zamfara State, the All Progressives Congress (APC) threw its weight behind fuel subsidy removal and asked people to ignore the proposed strike action by the NLC.
Speaking to Daily Trust in Gusau, the Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Sani Gwamna Mayanchi, said the fuel subsidy removal had become necessary for meaningful achievement to be recorded.