Civil servants and other Nigerians have been asked to boycott the services of MTN, Airtel and Glo, from February 13 to 28, 2025, between 11 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. daily.

The Central Working Committee of the NLC, on Wednesday, in a communiqué by the union’s President, Joe Ajaero, and the Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja, in Lokoja, Kogi State, said the directive was in reaction to the recent 50 per cent hike in telecommunications tariffs.

The communiqué read in part, “The CWC demands an immediate reversal of the tariff hike, which took effect today, and insists that the companies revert to the previous tariff until the committee completes its deliberations and reaches a conclusive agreement. As a first step in resisting this arbitrary tariff hike, the CWC has directed that beginning Thursday, February 13, 2025, Nigerian workers and other willing citizens shall boycott the services of MTN, AIRTEL, and GLO daily between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM until the end of February 2025.

“All workers and citizens are urged to suspend the purchase of data from these companies which has also become one of their greatest tools for exploiting Nigerian citizens. We also demand the repatriation of all funds siphoned out of the country by these companies. If the telecommunications companies fail to revert to the old tariff by the end of February 2025, a total shutdown of their operations nationwide will commence from March 1, 2025.’’

The NLC therefore directed its affiliate unions to mobilise their members across the country to observe the shut down in their domains during the stipulated periods of the selected days.

The call for the boycott came after the NLC and the Federal Government constituted a 10-man committee to deliberate on the tariff hike within two weeks and report back before any final decision would be made on the new telecom tariff structure.

While the Congress accused telecom companies of ignoring the agreement, betraying trust and disregarding due process by implementing the hike before the review by the committee was completed, they slammed the Federal Government for failing to protect citizens from corporate exploitation.