The Nigeria Labour Congress says President Bola Tinubu is treating Nigerians like pigeons, dismissing as an insult the president’s directive to the Ministry of Agriculture to release about 42,000 metric tonnes of grains to alleviate the hardship that followed his economic policies. 

In an interview with Arise TV on Sunday, Joe Ajaero, the NLC president, expressed the body’s dissatisfaction with Mr Tinubu’s intervention amid rising costs of living that resulted in protests in some states.

“I feel sad when we talk of the federal government giving people grains as if we are giving grains to pigeons and all these other birds,” Mr Ajaero said.

He added, “At this time and age in Nigeria, we are talking of the federal government providing how many tonnes of grains to Nigerians as a measure of stemming the level of hunger and poverty in the country. I beg to disagree that that is a serious insult to Nigerians. I think that we should think of something else.”

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lauded Mr Tinubu’s release of “cereals from the grain reserve, provided subsidised fertiliser to farmers,” amongst others, as measures “to ease the impact of rapidly rising inflation on living conditions.”

Irked by rising food prices, Nigerians in protests stormed the streets in Niger, Kano, Osun and Lagos States last week.

A market survey by Peoples Gazette last Wednesday showed that prices of virtually all food items have sharply increased by almost 100 per cent in the past nine months since Mr Tinubu assumed office.