The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has called for petrol prices to revert to their levels as of June 2023.
“We want the price of the product to go below what it was before; not just reverse to what it was before but to go below,” said TUC President, Festus Osifo, at a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
He asked the government to specially intervene in the sector by giving foreign exchange to Dangote Refinery at $1/N1,000 and not at the current $over 1/N1,600 exchange rate to crash petrol prices
“The solution we are proposing if implemented will take us to the price we had as of June last year,” Osifo stated, stressing that “there is no government in the world that doesn’t intervene in its critical sector” and that the Federal Government “shouldn’t leave it (the oil sector) to the vagaries and gyration of our naira”.
Since May 2023, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has raised the pump price of petrol from ₦184 in Lagos to ₦998. In June 2023, the price per litre of petrol in Lagos was approximately ₦450.
On Thursday, the TUC leader emphasized the need for petrol to be available, affordable, and accessible to all Nigerians, noting that it is essential for every household, even those without a second-hand vehicle.
The trade union placed its demands along the lines of affordability, availability and accessibility, saying, “We want the Federal Government to, through Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), give all marketers licenses to lift petrol from the Dangote Refinery.”
Osifo said the NNPCL should source refined petrol from other places if the Dangote Refinery cannot meet the current daily demands of Nigerians.
“If it is not available, it is a problem. If, for example, the production from Dangote Refinery is less than 15 million litres per day, it is not sufficient.
“So, while efforts are being made to ramp up production from Dangote Refinery, what we are demanding is that we should look for every other means as we are ramping up production, we should source for that difference and bring it in for a while until Dangote can get to that level where the production is sufficient to get to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria. For us, that is key because it will address the issue of availability,” the TUC boss stated.
Nigerians were taken by surprise on Wednesday morning when NNPC retail outlets adjusted the pump price of petrol in Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
In Lagos, our correspondent noted that many NNPCL outlets were selling a litre of petrol for ₦998, which is approximately ₦150 higher than the previous price of ₦855. This sudden increase triggered panic buying among motorists and transporters, resulting in long queues at filling stations.
Many non-NNPCL filling stations quickly followed suit, adjusting their prices incrementally, with some charging as much as ₦1,050 in various parts of Lagos.
The situation in Abuja was similar, as NNPCL retail outlets raised the price of petrol from ₦897 to ₦1,030.
This latest increase comes on the heels of the price hike by NNPCL on September 2, 2024, when they raised the price per litre from ₦568 to ₦855, sparking public outrage.
Although there has been no official statement from NNPCL regarding the recent price hike, the company suggested a potential increase when it began loading its first batch of petrol from the Dangote Refinery in mid-September.