…Insists that further price hike’ll spell doom for workers, citizenry
The National Executive Council (NEC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC), rose from its regular meeting yesterday with a stern warning to the Federal Government to immediately perish the idea of a fuel price hike in 2022 or risk having the country literally shut down in mass protests.
Recall that the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has said fuel may sell above N340/litre when the subsidy regime eventually comes to an end.
However, speaking in an issued statement at the end of the December NEC meeting, the NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, said a further petrol price hike will spell doom for workers and the generality of the citizenry by exposing them to acute deprivation, hardship and suffering that would worsen the already established trend of hyper-inflation in the country.
Wabba advised the Government to promote local capacity to refine petroleum products for domestic use.
He said, “Pursuant to its rejection and resistance to further increase in the price of petrol, NLC to organise protest rallies in all the 36 States of the Federation on January 27, 2022, which would culminate in the submission of protest letters to all the 36 State Governors. Subsequently, a National Protest will take place on 1st February 2022 in Abuja”.
“And in case the government decides to announce new petrol prices before the proposed protests, the protest will kick off instantly and without any further notice in every state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory”, he explained.
The NLC President reckoned that as long as the pricing of refined petroleum products is based on importation pricing template, which is heavily dependent on a volatile foreign exchange rate heavily skewed against the naira, the price of petrol and other refined petroleum products will continue to rise beyond the reach of average Nigerian workers and citizens.
On electoral reform, Wabba called President Muhammadu Buhari to pass the 2021 Electoral Act Amendment Bill into law particularly given that he has less than two days to sign the Bill into law; and to call for even broader and deeper electoral reform including the establishment of Electoral Offences Commission, the democratisation of the appointment of the national leadership of the INEC, the adoption of Proportional Representation in our laws and Diaspora Voting”, he added.
