The Nigeria Labour Congress has told the Federal Government to immediately reverse the price of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol, to its old price of N121 or face the wrath of workers and other Nigerians.
The President of the NLC, Ayuba Wabba, stated the position of Labour on Friday in Abuja.
Wabba said: “We demand that the Federal Government reverts to the old price of N121 given during the lockdown associated with COVID-19 pandemic which Nigerians who were mainly confined in their houses hardly enjoyed.”
He said it was unthinkable that while Nigerians were dealing with the recent hike in electricity tariff, the Federal Government went ahead to increase, for the third time in three months, the cost of fuel.
He said: “As we have always maintained, the Nigeria Labour Congress will never accept the transfer of government incompetence on Nigerians through hike in the pump price of petrol.
“The incompetence of government in this regard is particularly manifest by the rundown of our public refineries and resort to the unscrupulous economics of fuel importation.
“At the risk of shouting ourselves hoarse, we reiterate that the increase in the pump price of petrol is simply the cost of profits made by countries that have enough sense to maintain refineries that refine our crude oil, the cost of sea freight of refined petrol, the cost of demurrage at our seaports when the refined products arrive, the cost of frequent devaluation of our national currency, and the cost of official corruption by gatekeepers managing the downstream petroleum sub-sector.
“Nigerians have groaned to pay these unjust costs for years.
“This is indeed a whole new level of government insincerity and insensitivity. This latest increase in the price of petrol is indeed a crass display of complete apathy to the sufferings Nigerians are going through at this time.
“While other countries also going through the blues of the COVID-19 pandemic are reducing taxes, increasing welfare benefits and providing palliatives to their citizens, our own government is reducing interest rates on savings by the poor, increasing taxes and hiking tariffs on essential goods and services. Nigerians have never had it so bad.”
Wabba called for a national conversation on the management of the country’s oil assets, which he said must be in tandem with the provisions of the constitution.
He said: “We also demanded that our four national petroleum refineries must be fixed without any further delay. Nigerian workers want to be appraised of the timeline set by government to ensure that this is effectively done.
“Nigeria belongs to all of us. Workers are major stakeholders in the Nigerian project. Nigerian workers and people must not only be treated fairly, but must be seen to have been so treated by their government.”