Ayuba Wabba, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has reportedly stated that the continued importation of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, was foisted on the country by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
Ayuba noted that Nigeria had no business depending on imported petroleum products, stressing that it was the only member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries still importing petrol.
The NLC President reportedly disclosed these in Abuja in an interview on the sidelines of the 48th National Executive Council meeting of the Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria.
According to him, “The NLC has remained very consistent in its position about the issue of what we call subsidy. The position of the NLC is that Nigeria has no reason to continue to import refined products for domestic use, particularly PMS, because we’ve also found out that we are the only member country of OPEC that is doing that.”
He stated that, “It’s an imposed policy on Nigeria, and our leaders must find a way and means to get us out of that imposition. We have made this point very clear that because of the devaluation of our currency, it then means that the policy of importation will continue to have a negative impact on consumers.”
Wabba further warned the government “not to transfer its inefficiency to the Nigerian people by inflicting more pains on the masses in 2022,” saying the proposed N5,000 palliative was not sustainable.
He made it known that, “That remains the official position of the NLC. But we are going to meet tomorrow (Thursday) and next tomorrow (Friday) at the level of the National Executive Council to also review some of the pronouncements that have been made by the IMF, by the World Bank and even by the Nigerian government through the Minister of Finance.”
He noted that, “There will be an official position of the NLC National Executive Council, which is composed of all our state councils, presidents and general secretaries of our 49 affiliates. There will be an official statement and actions that will be lined up to try to do proper engagement to make sure that they don’t impose this policy on Nigerians.”
He maintained that, “There are many factors that have not been considered. As I speak, in 49 countries around the world, energy is still subsidised. So, our own is about making the process transparent, which shall be part of the programme.”
He added that, “It’s still a mystery that despite the fact that diesel and kerosene have been deregulated, the prices have never come down even when the price of crude oil at the international market was almost at zero dollar; the prices never came back; Nigerians must realise that.”
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