PROPOSED FUEL PRICE HIKE: NLC, TUC MOBILISE FOR MASS PROTEST

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and the Trade Union Congress,
TUC, alongside their affiliates will begin nationwide mass protests on April 10
over the planned increase in the prices of petroleum products. Both labour
centres, and oil workers under the aegis of the National Union of Petroleum and
Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, Petroleum Tanker Drivers, PTD and Petroleum and
Natural Gas Workers Senior Staff Association, PENGASSAN, as well as civil
servants have also vowed to join the protests.

The protest could be a repeat of the mass action that paralysed
the nation following the fuel price hike on January 1, 2012 and forced the
government to back down. President Goodluck Jonathan had said last week in
Lagos that the government would still remove fuel subsidy after due
consultations with Nigerians while speaking at the Nigeria Summit organised by
The Economist.

According to him, “We cannot continue to waste resources meant
for a greater number of Nigerians to subsidise the affluent middle class, who
are the main beneficiaries (of fuel subsidy).” The Minister of Information, Mr.
Labaran Maku, in defence of President Jonathan, had said the removal of subsidy
on fuel is inevitable if the nation is to witness sustainable socioeconomic
transformation.

Addressing a press conference in Lagos yesterday, however,
President-General of TUC, Mr. Peter Esele, said that the decision for the mass
protest has already been taken at the last National Executive Council meeting
of the congress and that labour, working with civil society groups, have
already started mobilising for protest.

He said that organised labour have also demanded the resignation
of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo Iweala, who is a foremost advocate of fuel subsidy removal on the
grounds that she has told Nigerians “too many contradicting stories on fuel
subsidy.”

According to him, the Finance Minister last year claimed that
N1.2trn had fraudulently gone into subsidy, and that the government will
continue to pay subsidy until all the nation’s refineries are repaired and made
to work at optimal capacity, and all the depots rehabilitated. Reiterating
their readiness to embark on protests on said date, Esele maintained that
Nigerians will resist any new increase in petroleum products prices with
“everything humanly possible”.

The NLC had earlier called on Jonathan to drop the plan, which
it insisted would deepen the suffering of several members of organised labour and
other Nigerians who are not part of “the affluent middle class.”

It said that even though it did not know the form the
consultations the President spoke about would take, it had a position that fuel
price increase was inimical to the well-being of Nigerians. NLC Vice-President,
Comrade Promise Adewusi, had said that Labour’s opposition to fuel subsidy
removal could only change if Nigerians took a decision to embrace suffering. He
had said, “We have a subsisting position on the issue of the removal of fuel
subsidy.

Our position is that the issue of fuel increase is something
that Nigerians cannot live with; the President should drop it. “We do not know
the mode of the consultations that the Federal Government intends to take.

However, unless Nigerians decide to swallow hardship, then it
could happen. Our disagreement is not just to disagree but because of our
members, and other Nigerians who we feel will suffer from an increase in fuel
price.

“They want to consult with Nigerians; and you can see that they
are going beyond labour. Let us wait; maybe there is going to be a referendum
or a plebiscite so that it would not be as if you are fighting the removal when
the people you are fighting for are supporting it.”

PENGASSAN President, Comrade Babatunde Ogun, told National
Mirror yesterday that it is not possible for government to increase fuel price
now, considering that there are too many unanswered questions including the
subsidy claims, position of the refineries, the Petroleum Industry Bill and
other issues, adding that government needs to further engage all stakeholders
on the project.

However, Ogun said should government go ahead to increase fuel
price, PENGASSAN will join Nigerians to resist the move, while at the same time
expressing surprise why government is proposing fuel price increase when
workers are preparing to meet the government for upward review of salaries.

Opposition political parties and some elements of the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have also expressed misgivings about the planned
fuel price hike. The All Nigerian People’s Party, ANPP, had said Jonathan would
see the wrath of Nigerians if he increased the price of petrol again.

“We don’t think that the President will do that again going by
what happened when he did that the other time. Maybe his time has come to see
the wrath of Nigerians fully.

He will see it if he does that. “Nigerians are waiting for him
and if he wants to see their red eyes, let him do it. He wants to contest in
2015 and he won’t stop making life difficult for the people he wants to govern.

That is wickedness,” ANPP National Publicity Secretary, Chief
Emma Eneukwu, said. The Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, also slammed
Jonathan for making such a statement when Nigerians were still mourning bomb
blasts victims in Kano. Describing the President as “uncaring,” the CPC said
since he had once said he did not give a damn; “Nigerians should expect
anything from him.”

Sources within the PDP have also reportedly said the fuel
subsidy removal was a suicidal gamble for the party ahead of the 2015 polls as
the opposition could easily take advantage of the widespread disenchantment to
secure an upset at the polls.

The Federal Government had on New Year’s Day in 2012 increased
petrol price from N65 per litre to N141 per litre sparking a week of mass
protests called by labour and civil society groups that grounded all economic
activities nationwide.

The protests were called off after the government backed down
and cut the price by 50 per cent to N97 per litre but fuel is still sold above
the official price in some parts of the country especially in the South East.