Speaking on Wednesday, Joe Ajaero, the NLC president, said workers could not access cash to pay fares to get to work nor buy food for their families. He also criticised the pricing irregularities in the petroleum sector.

Mr Ajaero said the strike will start on Wednesday next week.

He also directed the NLC affiliate unions to be on standby for picketing across all branches of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) nationwide.

"By Wednesday next week, all CBN branches will be picketed, workers are directed to stay at home too because people cannot eat, workers can no longer go to the office, we have been pushed to the wall," Mr Ajaero said.

“We have decided to take our destiny in our hands, we have mobilised our workers on this exercise,” he added.

The CBK is on Thursday expected to start releasing more old notes to commercial banks, Punch website reported.

The move is expected to end months of hardships that Nigerians have been going through, following the controversial CBN note redesign policy that caused a severe shortage of old and new naira notes across the country.