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 reports, the NLC leadership organized its affiliate unions and State Councils last Friday to shut down offices of the apex bank nationwide due to the current cash shortage in the nation.
Nevertheless, Emefiele was reported as warning during a private meeting at the Ministry of Labour and Employment’s Abuja headquarters that if the demonstration was not put down, it would impede the work of the central bank.
An official of the ministry, who attended the meeting told newsmen anonymously that Emefiele promised to ensure that all commercial banks were given enough cash from the CBN’s vault.
“You would notice that the CBN had since last Friday directed commercial banks to open during weekends so as to ease the issue of cash crunch. The governor (Emefiele) was here to talk to the Minister in order to prevail on the labour leaders.
“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.
None of the trio spoke to journalists after the closed-door meeting.
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 our correspondent said he would brief the press on Tuesday regarding the outcome of the meeting.