The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on the Federal Government to consider options to help the country embrace developmental governance and accountable leadership, while rejecting the planned petroleum price increase.
NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, made the call in a statement he issued to newsmen in Abuja, entitled: ”Nigerian workers refused to take the bait’’.
According to him, the Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Malam Mele Kyari, announced that petrol could cost as much as N340 from February 2022.
Wabba described as “comical“ the bait by the government to pay 40 million Nigerians N5,000 as palliative, to cushion the effect of astronomical increase in the price of petrol.
He said that the total amount involved what he called “queer initiative“ was far more than the money government claimed to spend currently on fuel subsidy.
The NNPC GMD said that the price increase would be consequent on the plans by the Federal Government to remove subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, also commonly referred to as petrol or fuel.
“The grand optimism of the NNPC GMD was predicated on the claims that the removal of fuel subsidy is now backed by an act of parliament probably the Petroleum Industry Act which was recently signed into law,’’ he said.
Wabba noted that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, re-echoed same on Tuesday at the launch of the World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update (NDU).
Given the nationwide panic that has trailed the disclosure of the monologue within the corridors of government and foreign interests, the NLC wishes to maintain its rejection of deregulation based on import- driven model.
“We wish to reiterate our persuasion that the only benefit of deregulation based on import driven model is that Nigerian consumers will infinitely continue to pay high prices for refined petroleum products,” he said.
The NLC president said that any attempt to compare the price of petrol in Nigeria to other countries would be set on a faulty premise as it would be akin to comparing apples and mangoes.
Wabba said the contemplation by the government to increase the price of petrol by more than 200 per cent was a perfect recipe for an aggravated pile of hyper-inflation and astronomical increase in the price of goods and services.
