Though, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and their civil society allies declared on Saturday that prices of foodstuffs have skyrocketted since the Federal Government increased the price of petrol, they have, however, appealed to Nigerians to stock sufficient food items that will last for a while, as an indefinite nationwide strike begins on Wednesday over the fuel price.
After the harmonisation of their respective positions in a meeting held at the Labour House, Abuja, the NLC, TUC, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the civil society groups, rejected the new fuel price increase, describing it as “unrealistic, unaffordable, unacceptable and thus rejected.”
“Nigerians are therefore advised to stock sufficient food items that will last for a while for the prosecution of the current struggle against neo-liberal agenda in Nigeria,” the NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, said at a joint press conference addressed by the TUC President, Comrade Bobboi Kaigama, Comrade Dipo Fashina and the PENGASSAN President, Francis Olabode Johnson.
The labour unions called for the immediate reversal of the prices of petroleum products and electricity tariff to their old prices before midnight on Wednesday or face total and indefinite strike.
Comrade Wabba, who addressed the press conference, said the NLC, TUC and their civil society allies will “mobilise to the streets across the country, ordinary and helpless Nigerians to whom they owe the duty of protection;
“Shut down all banks, sea and air ports, government and private offices as well as markets. Commence indefinite nationwide strike action. Fight/resist the machinations and cruelties of the neo-liberal forces in the government as part of the process of saving the government from itself and the generality of Nigerians from slavery.”
However, there were indications that the division within the NLC leadership could affect the struggle from achieving its purpose as the President of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Comrade Igwe Achese who is also the chairman of joint NUPENG/PENGASSAN, belongs to Comrade Ajaero’s faction of the NLC.
Besides, NUPENG and PENGASSAN have after their joint NEC meeting in Calabar, Cross River State backed the deregulation policy and fuel subsidy removal, which by extension indicated their full support for the fuel price increase.
But the NLC President allayed these fears, saying, “NLC, TUC and other civil society allies are not unaware of the positions taken by the unions in the oil and gas industry. A process of engagement will be put in place in order to ensure the success of the struggle to protect the overall interest of the Nigerian people.”
He, however, pointed out that both have inquired from the PENGASSAN president, who was with them, on their reported position, and that the issue addressed by PENGASSAN and NUPENG was about deregulation and subsidy removal, not price increase.
Wabba said, “we are not working at cross purposes,” adding that there are rooms for further consultation in the interest of Nigerian people.
The PENGASSAN president, Comrade Johnson, who also made a clarification, however, advised that a stakeholders meeting must be called immediately, while advising that the NLC should ensure that it also works along with NUPENG, to achieve results.
TUC President, Comrade Kaigama, while speaking, denied that the NLC, TUC, NUPENG and PENGASSAN were part of the meeting where the decision was made to increase fuel pump price.
He explained that the vice president invited them to a meeting, without them even knowing the agenda of the meeting, adding that as a mark of respect for the vice president, they attended the meeting.
Kaigama stated further that the Minister of Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, came out with a planned position without previous consultations with labour or other stakeholders, adding that when the unions’ opinion was sought, it said that as democratic bodies, they have to go back to their organs, consult and later communicate their decision to the government.
The TUC President pointed out that at no point did labour arrive at a decision at that meeting, and were therefore surprised to hear from the minister later that labour as represented by the NLC, TUC, NUPENG and PENGASSAN were at the meeting where it was resolved to increase fuel price to N145 per litre.
Comrade Wabba, who spoke on the strike and protest rally, said; “The emergency meeting debated extensively the implications of government’s unilateral increase in prices of petroleum products, noting government’s disinclination for consultation on issues of public interest and its obsession with protecting product marketers at the expense of the Nigerian public. The meeting expressed concern about government’s neo-liberal policies which it considered a betrayal of its electioneering promises and observed as follows:
“During the electioneering last year, the Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari, had promised that, if elected president, he would not remove fuel subsidy if there was any at all.
“After his election, President Muhammadu Buhari had maintained that there was no subsidy in the petroleum product price regime and that even if there was, he did not see how its removal would be beneficial to the ordinary Nigerian, noting that the slightest product price adjustment often leads to inflationary spiral and unimaginable suffering for the people.
“Organised labour wondered what has informed government’s sudden and dangerous policy summersault and its desperate attempt to convince the public that labour was part of the decision that led to this price increase.”
Wabba said the increase was illegal, since the board of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), legally empowered to take such decision, has not been constituted.
He said: “In view of the fact that the board of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), which is statutorily vested with powers to recommend prices, has not been reconstituted, the price variation announced by any officer of the agency or outside the agency is not only ultra vires and illegal, it is a criminal imposition on the citizenry.
NECA opposes strike
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has opposed the imminent industrial actions planned by labour.
It said it is throwing its weight behind government’s long awaited deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry.
It averred that the policy is a crucial first step in the resolution of the perennial dependence of Nigeria on imported petroleum products.
Speaking to Sunday Tribune in Lagos on Saturday, the Director General, NECA, Mr Olusegun Oshinowo, praised the Federal Government for the courage it demonstrated, by embracing a policy option that will jumpstart significant reform in the downstream sector that would impact positively on the economy both in the short and long terms.
“As a key actor in the economy and participant at various committees of the government in the past on the subject at stake, NECA deplored the usual resort of organised labour to threat of strike to impose its position even when such would be to the long term detriment of the economy as we have seen over the year with the subsidy regime.
“One stakeholder’s interest should not loom larger than several other stakeholders and should not be pushed through an illegal strike on an issue outside the primary mandate of the custodian of the interest,” he said.
He argued that government’s policy on oil and gas is not an employment and labour issue, and should not be a basis for a national strike.
Source:Tribune
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