There are indications that the social crisis thrown up as a result of subsidy removal may have assumed a worsen­ing dimension as parties to the deliberations for a palliative scheme are turned apart.

This became noticeable on Friday as leaders of the two labour centres, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) stormed out of a meeting which was supposed to hold at the presidential villa over the inability to form a quorum.

Recall that the Presidential Steering Committee on subsidy had scheduled to meet again on Friday, to draw out outline for a palliative scheme to cushion the effect of the subsidy remov­al policy.

The President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, had led his dele­gation to the Chief of Staff’s office, venue of the meeting at about 5pm but on sensing that the government team was not on ground to meet with them, they walked away angrily.

Recall that the Steering Committee meeting had met with the government delega­tion on Wednesday where the two parties agreed to reconvene on Friday to get brief from the three sub-committees set up to look into various demands.

The labour union accused the federal government of us­ing the meetings as a pretext to deceive Nigerians.

A source at the meeting con­firmed that three subcommit­tees, the Mass Transit, the Com­pressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Cash Transfer subcommittees, were supposed to be present to brief the Steering Committee on the measures put in place to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal on the work­ers.

But labour claimed that government officials, who are members of the subcommit­tees were nowhere to be found.

A visibly infuriated mem­ber of the Steering Commit­tee from labour who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, “They are not prepared for the meeting. That’s the truth,” maintaining that the government representatives had insisted that the meeting should proceed even though no quorum was formed.”

He further said, “They are using cover to deceive Nigeri­ans. There are supposed to be three subcommittees, mass transit subcommittee, the CNG, and the cash transfer, to brief us, the steering commit­tee but government was not prepared for the meeting.

“In their introductory re­marks they made excuses and they wanted the meeting to continue, the meeting did not form a quorum. We are a peo­ple that operate on the basis of process. So, if there’s no quo­rum in a meeting what do you do? You will adjourn for lack of quorum.

“There was nobody to meet with. The Chief of Staff was not there, they are taking us like small children.”

However, it was gathered that the Chief of Staff, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila had earlier waited for the labour delega­tion with other members of the team at his Conference Hall.

He later stepped out to at­tend to other official matters within the Villa while other members of the government team were waiting for the or­ganised labour to arrive

It was gathered that the or­ganised labour delegation from the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and the Trade Union Congress.(TUC)