The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government to device a means to stop the continued depreciation of the nation’s currency against major currencies, which has led to high inflation.
Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s efforts to arrest the slide have not been yielding much fruits as the Naira keeps depreciating, exchanging at the inter-bank market at about N315.60 to the dollar on Thursday and N470 to the dollar at the parallel market.
Latest date from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, showed an increase in inflation to about 18.3 per cent in October, from 17.9 per cent in September.
The Labour Union said it was worried at the fruitless moves by the CBN to bring the situation under control, saying the devaluation and the attendant inflation have caused massive distress to millions of Nigerian families across the country.
The Labour Congress took a review of the state of the nation and noted that the protest it embarked in May against the hike in fuel price of petroleum products justified its position that tying fuel price crude oil price at the international market and the black market exchange rate was not sustainable.