The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria has kicked against the new price of the the new international passport stating that it is “insensitive on the part of the agency”.
The body stated this in a statement signed by its president, Comrade (Dr.) Bobboi Bala Kaigama and its Secretary General, Comrade (Barr.) Musa-Lawal Ozigi, mni, stressing that it is shocking in a country where minimum wage is N N30, 000, the price of international passport is N70, 000.
It stated: “Sometimes one wonders where our privileged Nigerians think from. For over two years now we have been fighting for a new wage of without any meaningful breakthrough. Only yesterday we read that the Council of State, who was never a part of the tripartite committee setup by the Federal Government pegged the new wage at N27, 000. By implication if this anti-masses conspiracy is allowed to scale through it then means a civil servant would have to save his salary for three months to be able to pay for a passport. What about feeding, rent, school fees and other utilities? This will not work.
“Come to think of it, we have not even received the new wage, yet government and its agencies are already devising numerous avenues to get the money back. Who knows what Customs, FRSC, FIRS, etc have in the offing? Most Nigerians who cannot get National Identify Card prefer to use the International Passport for transactions. Unfortunately, that opportunity is about to be scuttled because of greed and avarice.
“If the concern of government is to stop Nigerians from traveling, that may not work as they have failed to make the country habitable by creating jobs, infrastructure, good schools, healthcare, etc. Is it not despicable that Ghana is now doing far better in FDI? Telling us whenever we ask for a wage increase that the price of crude has dropped is not fair. Crude is not our only source of revenue. Nigerians all over the world in their millions renew their International Passports weekly, if not daily. Where is the money? We expect that in this era of integrity there should be accountability.”
It added that it may adopt any measure to ensure that the new International passport does not exceed N50, 000.
