The Nigeria Labour Congress has rejected the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited’s revised pump price for petrol.
According to the Daily Trust, the NNPCL has instructed all of its stores to sell petrol for between N480 and N570 per litre.
The price change, according to NNPC Ltd.’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Garba Deen Muhammad, was decided to reflect “market realities.”
However, the NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, termed the event as a “ambush” and insisted that any further dialogue is in jeopardy when he briefed journalists at Labour House in Abuja, on Wednesday.
He stated that the congress would not agree to it because the government cannot talk about deregulation while also setting the prices of petroleum goods. He made the point that the government cannot control prices or remove subsidies on its own.
“We are concerned that the government, through the NNPC, went ahead this morning and announced a new regime of prices under a new pricing template, despite the ongoing meeting of stakeholders in the oil and gas sector to manage the President’s unfortunate but unilateral decision to withdraw subsidies on petroleum products.
“This is an ambush and goes against social dialogue’s spirit and tenets, which continues to be the ideal forum for resolving all problems originating from the petroleum downstream sector.
“The government cannot simultaneously discuss deregulation while setting the price of petroleum goods. The labor leader argued that this “negates the spirit of allowing the free market to operate until the government has as usual usurped, captured, or become Market forces.”
Comrade Ajaero, however, urged the federal government, led by President Bola Tinubu, to immediately direct the NNPCL to drop what he called its “vexatious pricing template” in order to allow the free flow of discussions by the parties.
He said that the stakeholders’ meeting, which was supposed to take place at 2 p.m. today as stated in the morning, has been postponed as he accused the administration of attempting to sabotage the conversation.
The head of the labor movement continued, “Therefore, it is unacceptable, and we strongly condemn it. To obtain a deal, negotiations must be conducted in good faith. The government’s actions have undermined the discussion by putting an unwarranted amount of pressure on the leaders and holding a gun to the heads of the Nigerian people.
“Nigerians will not tolerate any sort of manipulation from any party, especially from those in the government claiming to speak for them,” he said.
