The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC says the latest increase in petrol pump price from N121.50 to N143.80, might just be the last straw that would break the camel’s back.
In a statement signed by the NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, the labour demanded that the Federal Government reverts to the old price of petroleum especially given the fact that price of crude oil in the international market has only slightly increased from the previous price before the so-called downward review was announced two months ago.
The NLC said it is also very embarrassing that the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA boss, Saidu Abubakar, while trying to defend the indefensible, appeared to be out of sorts and ready to clutch at any available straws to sell his “ice block merchandise” to “Eskimos”.
The Labour said apart from contradicting himself that PPPRA is still trying to regulate a deregulated product through “advisories”, the agency went on to exert more nails on the coffin of his own polemics when he argued that the PPPRA was just like the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, that would always act to protect the public interest.
The NLC insisted that it is unfortunate that Mr Abdulkadir did not even feign pretence that the government has abdicated its responsibility to protect Nigerians from the cut-throat tendencies of neoliberal market forces. Contrary to the provisions of Chapter 2 of the 1999 Constitution, the PPPRA claimed that the abdication is not ‘total’.
The Nigerian Labour said when the statement by the PPPRA is juxtaposed with the recent killer electricity charges unveiled by the Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs, Nigerians cannot help but feel the heat of a potent threat to run millions of Nigerians under.
It hinted that it is even worse that this is coming at a time when the people are living on the precipice of the Covid-19, noting that the economic benefits of the so-called “downward” review was hardly enjoyed by ordinary Nigerians who were mostly indoors and sadly just as the lockdown is being eased out and as soon as the inter-state travel ban was lifted, the government decided to hike petrol price.
The NLC warned that the Nigerian people and workers are forced to interpret this move as grand mischief and deceit and there is no way Nigerians would accept a situation where they are charged international rates for a product which Nigeria is the sixth-largest producer in the world.
It said 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 Nigeria ship her crude oil to, the cost of sea freight of the refined products, the cost of demurrage at the seaports when the refined products arrive, the cost of the frequent devaluation of the national currency, and the cost of official corruption by gatekeepers managing the downstream petroleum sub-sector.
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