On Wednesday, the Nigeria Labour Congress described the Nigerian National Population Company Limited’s announcement of a new pump pricing for Premium Motor Spirit “an ambush.”
According to the congress, President Bola Tinubu “put a gun to the head of the Nigerian people” with this act.
On Wednesday afternoon, the NNPCL announced that Premium Motor Spirit, more commonly known as fuel, had its pump prices modified nationwide.
The national oil firm claimed that the revised pump price was in line with “current market realities” in a statement released on Wednesday and signed by its Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Garba Deen Muhammad.
But the NLC in a statement signed by its National President, Joe Ajaero, said, “We are worried that the Government through the NNPC despite the ongoing meeting of Stakeholders in the oil and Gas sector to manage the unilateral but unfortunate announcement by the President to withdraw subsidy on petroleum products, went ahead this morning to announce a new regime of prices under a new pricing template.
“This is an ambush and runs against the spirit and principles of Social Dialogue which remains the best platform available for the resolution of all the issues arising out of the petroleum Downstream sector.
“Government cannot in one breathe be talking about deregulation and at the same time fixing the prices of Petroleum products. This negates the spirit of allowing the operation of the free market unless the government has as usual usurped, captured, or become Market forces.
“It is therefore unacceptable and we seriously condemn it. Good faith negotiation is key to reaching an agreement. What the government has done is like holding a gun to the head of the Nigerian people and bring undue pressure on the leaders thus undermine the dialogue.
“We call on the federal government to immediately instruct the NNPC to withdraw this vexatious pricing template to allow free flow of discussions by the parties. Nigerians would not accept any manipulations of any kind from any of the parties, especially from the representatives of the Government.”
