Posted by Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, appealed to Chris Ngige, the minister of labor and employment, on Monday to exert pressure on the NLC’s leadership regarding the organization’s planned demonstration for Wednesday.
According to a Dailytrust report, the NLC leadership rallied its affiliate unions and State Councils last Friday to close all branches of the apex bank nationwide due to the current cash shortage in the nation.
Emefiele was reportedly heard saying that if the protest wasn’t put down, it would impede the apex bank’s progress at a meeting held behind closed doors at the Ministry of Labour and Employment’s Abuja headquarters.
While Emefiele led the top bank officials to the meeting, which was later presided over by the Minister, Joe Ajaero, the NLC President, led other labor leaders.
Emefiele promised to make sure that all commercial banks received enough cash from the CBN’s vault, a ministry official who attended the meeting told Daily Trust under condition of anonymity.
“As you may have noticed, the CBN ordered commercial banks to remain open on weekends starting last Friday in an effort to alleviate the cash shortage problem. To influence the labor leaders, the governor (Emefiele) spoke with the Minister while he was here.
“He (Emefiele) said the protest will disrupt a lot of things in the bank, hence his reasons to heed the minister’s call who is a Chief conciliator”, the official told Daily Trust.
Following the meeting behind closed doors, none of the three spoke with journalists.
A statement is yet to be issued either by the apex bank or the ministry regarding the meeting as at when filing this report last night.
But the NLC President in a formal invitation to newsmen said he would brief the press on Tuesday regarding the outcome of the meeting.