NLC prepares for showdown over subsidy removal

By Timothy Enietan-Matthews

The planned removal of the Petroleum Subsidy Fund by the Federal Government may run into trouble waters as the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has put its state councils and affiliate unions on the notice for a showdown with the Federal Government if it carries out the plan.

The decision of the NLC was made known by its General Secretary, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson, in a statement he issued on Tuesday, adding that the NLC was determined to fight the surreptitious removal of the fuel subsidy.

According to him, a meeting of the National Executive Committee of the congress would be convened in January.

Ozo-Eson, in the statement, wondered why opposition politicians who encouraged the mass action against the former administration to remove the fuel subsidy were now agitating for its removal, adding that the removal of the fuel subsidy without the capacity to refine crude oil for local consumption would unleash hardship on workers and indeed the average Nigerian.

Read also: No going back on minimum wage, NLC insists

The congress further said that the different pump prices for fuel recently announced by the Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Ibe Kachikwi, were meant to confuse Nigerians to remove the fuel subsidy.

“In the past few weeks, we have heard discordant tunes from government officials and chieftains of the ruling APC on what the future portends for the prices of petroleum products and the management of the subsidy scheme.

“Party chieftains who supported and encouraged the massive protests against subsidy removal in 2012 are now preaching the inevitability of subsidy removal! The Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum first announced that come next year the price of petrol will revert to ₦97 per litre and that subsidy will be phased out.

“Two days, thereafter, he denied this and stated that what he said was that the price will operate within a band of ₦87 to ₦97 and that this did not mean removing the subsidy. The same minister now says that the price of petrol will now be ₦85 in January signifying the deregulation of the sector.

“These vacillations and flip flops are, in our view, designed to confuse Nigerians and pave the way for deregulation of petrol prices through the back door. The fact of the matter is that as long as we continue to depend on imported refined products, deregulation and the abandonment of a subsidy scheme will unleash hardship on Nigerians. ..

“In the meantime, we wish to restate our opposition, adopted at our Central Working Committee Emergency Meeting of 22nd December, to any attempt by the government to increase the price of or remove subsidy on petrol.

“We reiterate our directive to our State Councils and Industrial Unions to commence the process of mobilisation prior to a meeting of the National Executive Committee to be convened in the New Year.

The NLC scribe further said that the fuel pump prices being bandied by the minister were illegal as the board of the Petroleum Products Price Regulatory Agency had not been constituted to perform its role for over two years, adding that the PPPRA was the only government agency empowered by law to recommend the prices of petroleum products in the country.

He further stressed that the prices being thrown up by Kachikwu did not emanate from the PPPRA, calling on the Federal Government to constitute the board of the PPPRA to empower the agency to determine the pump price in line with current realities.

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