THE Nigeria Labour Congress has rejected the new fuel price of N143.8 announced by the Petroleum Products Price Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).
NLC in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday, demanded the reversal of the pump price to the old price to reflect the reality in the prices of crude oil in the international market.
The labour union said in the statement which was signed by its President, Ayuba Wabba said, “this might just be the last straw that would break the camel’s back.
“Nigerians would recall that the last downward review in the price of petrol was at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown.
“The economic benefits of the so-called “downward” review were hardly enjoyed by ordinary Nigerians who were mostly indoors.
“Just as the lockdown is being eased out and as soon as the interstate travel ban was lifted, the government decided to hike the petrol price.
“Nigerian people and workers are forced to interpret this move as grand mischief and deceit.
“It is clear even to the blind that the crisis in our downstream petroleum sub-sector is ‘self’ nay government-inflicted.”
“Government simply wants to transfer the cost of its own inefficiencies to the Nigerian people.
“Nigerian workers say ‘No’ to such.
“There is no way Nigerians would accept a situation where we are charged international rates for a product which Nigeria is the sixth-largest producer in the world.
“The extra costs that the PPPRA wants Nigerians to pay in order to promote ‘growth’ and ‘investment’ are actually the cost of profits made by countries that we ship our crude oil to, the cost of sea freight of the refined products, the cost of demurrage at our seaports when the refined products arrive, the cost of the frequent devaluation of our national currency, and the cost of official corruption by gatekeepers managing the downstream petroleum sub-sector.”
