The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) on Monday vowed that the organised labour is not going back on the planed national strike in protest of petrol subsidy removal done by President Bola Tinubu without functional refinery in Nigeria.
Former Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Amaechi Asugwuni, speaking on Channels television on Monday declared that “there is no going back on the proposed strike scheduled for Wednesday;”protesting that “the Federal Government has not handled the subsidy removal process properly”.
Asugwuni maintained that “anything above the current price without a concrete plan for refineries to kick-start would make the country ‘unwise’ before the world”.
The former NLC Deputy President had declared that “strike is Inevitable because people know that the Nigerian government was paying subsidies because it is not refining itself. So, doing away with subsidy without you refining after 30 years or more suggests incompetence.
“Using Dangote as a yardstick or determinant factor for subsidy removal is laughable. Dangote is Dangote, Dangote is not the federal government and lets us not suggest that Dangote is now richer than Nigeria, it is not true.
“If Dangote can put a refinery in place within a space of years, the Federal government can do more than four refineries of that size in Nigeria. If we subject Nigeria’s market to the Dangote refinery alone, it means that we have transferred the corruption we are running away from to one man.
“The awareness of Buhari’s action, even though subsidy ends in his tenure does not end the government of Nigeria. Therefore, the action that they took reflected that after June, come to no subsidy – That was done politically because it was not announced politically, it was hidden under the budget plan.”
He maintained that “the lawyers have said it is illegal for NNPC to increase pump price of petrol, and therefore, NNPC, even though it was legal to do so, I think forces in the market are beyond NNPC.
“Because when you allow market force to determine market price you therefore cannot have a permanent price template, otherwise, it would look as if the subsidy is still working with some people, especially the NNPC.”