The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has kicked against the N180 billion palliative package released by the federal government to states to cushion the impact of the fuel subsidy removal, saying only the governors will gain from the packages.

NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said that based on what the government provided, poor people across the country would get N2,000 and a cup of rice each.

Ajaero pointed out that Nigerians could not trust the state governors to pay minimum wage, questioning why they should be charged with the implementation of the initiative.

He said, “N5bn multiplied by 36 states will give you N180bn. So, if you divide that with the official figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, which says that 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor, and calculate it, you will get about N2,000 each for those poor.

As part of measures to reduce the economic effects of the subsidy removal, the federal government on Thursday announced a N5bn palliative for each state in the country.