The governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, on Monday appealed to the leadership of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to shelve its planned protest.
NLC had last week Friday mobilised its affiliate unions and the State Councils to shut down offices of the apex bank nationwide over current cash scarcity in the country.
The appeal was made through the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, to prevail on the leadership of NLC over the protest slated for Wednesday this week.
But at a closed-door meeting which held at the headquarters of Ministry of Labour and Employment in Abuja, Emefiele was quoted as saying the protest would hinder the progress of the apex bank if not averted.
The President of NLC, Joe Ajaero led other Labour leaders while Emefiele led the apex bank officials to the meeting that was later presided over by the Minister.
An official of the ministry, who attended the meeting told Daily Trust 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.
Both the CBN and NLC are yet to issue any statement on the outcome of the meeting as at press time.