Fuel Price: NLC Threatens To Pull Out Of Talks With Government

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has warned that it may be forced to withdraw from the dialogue with the federal government over the cushioning of the hardship brought on Nigerians by the withdrawal of petrol subsidy by President Bola Tinubu. This followed on Tuesday’s decision by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) to raise the pump price of petrol in its Abuja filling stations, from N537 per litre to N617.

In a statement on Tuesday, signed by NLC President, Joe Ajaero, the union accused the government of callousness, saying its palliative measures to address the repercussions of the subsidy removal lack transparency.     

With regard to the latest petrol price hike, while rates are likely to be higher in the far north due to transportation cost, they are expected to be slightly lower in the south.

The congress described Tinubu’s proposal to pay National Assembly members N70 billion and the judiciary N36 billion as most insensitive and outright bribery of the other arms of government to endorse his aberrations.

NLC said the federal government seemed bent on forcing the committee negotiating the fuel hike matter to also endorse a predetermined outcome, which would not be palatable to workers and ordinary Nigerians.

Regarding the mode of implementation of the palliatives, NLC said it did not have confidence in how the data for “the never-changing 12 million poorest households was generated neither do we have confidence in the mechanisms being pursued for the distribution of the cash transfers”.

In a statement signed by NLC President, Joe Ajaero, the labour movement said they would not want to waste the time of Nigerians, especially workers, on committees that had already been programmed to fail.

The statement said, “It is important to inform Nigerians that despite having shown our readiness to commence work in the committees, the federal government, which convenes the meetings, is yet to inaugurate the National Steering Committee, thus, stalling the work of the proposed committees.

“If the government had wanted an expedited action, which Nigerians want more, the best approach would have been to quickly inaugurate the committees and allow them do their work. But as we write, nothing has been done, except the continuation of the borrowing spree and subsequent allocation to themselves.”

NLC said it would “not want to continue to be part of the usual charade of committees with outcomes that are never implemented.

In addition, NLC alleged that the federal government had in the wake of the dispute on withdrawal of fuel subsidy procured “unholy injunction from the courts, which were served us in gestapo style by trucks laden with fully armed soldiers and policemen.

“Nigerians would remember that the federal government had called for dialogue in the aftermath of its disastrous forlorn trajectory in the astronomical increase in petroleum product price and our subsequent call for a nation-wide industrial action.