By Amuda Dan Sulaiman Fab
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Tuesday demanded immediate reversal of the latest hike in the price of petrol across the country.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said the labour movement felt betrayed by the federal government over the fresh hike in the price of petrol.
Although the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) did not officially announce a price increase, its outlets and other major filling stations nationwide adjusted petrol pump prices upward yesterday.
In Lagos, NNPCL stations adjusted their price to N855 from N568; Kano, N902; Abuja, N887 per litre from N617.
This happened two days after the NNPCL notified the public of its $6 billion indebtedness to importers and its financial strain.
He recalled that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had told the organised labour, during the negotiation of the minimum wage to choose between N250,000 and increase in price of fuel or accept N70,000 and allow the price of petrol to remain the same.
“But here we are, barely one month after and with the government yet to commence payment of the new national minimum wage, confronted by a reality we cannot explain. It is both traumatic and nightmarish.
“Yet, when we told the government that its approach to resolving the fuel subsidy contradictions was patently faulty and would not last, its front row cheer leaders sneered at us, saying we did not understand basic economics.
“But if truth be told, this act of betrayal is consistent with the character of this government. We recall the assurances we were given by the leadership of the National Assembly on the 250% tariff hike, that it had been dealt with and there was no need to openly engage the Minister of Power who was at that meeting.
“Instead of the promised reversal, the rate has since been jacked up further putting more Nigerians and businesses in jeopardy. The combined effects of government’s ferocious right-wing market policies brought Nigerians and Nigeria to their all-time low and led to the End-Hunger/End Bad Governance protests,” Ajaero said.
He said appropriate organs of the NLC would meet to make appropriate decisions which would be made public.
He added: “We insist that the government cannot criminalise protests or basic rights in the domain of the citizenry.”
He said the union, among other things, demands immediate release of all those “incarcerated” are being prosecuted on the assumption of having participated in the recent protests, halt of indiscriminate arrests and detention of citizens on trumped up charges and reversal of the 250% tariff hike in electricity.
Ajaero alleged that the police and other security agencies had since been on “rampage terrorising the citizenry in pursuance of government’s agenda of muzzling lawful dissent”.
He asked the government to halt many of its policies that made hunger and insecurity fester in the land, saying it should stop hounding Nigerians forthwith.
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