The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), on Saturday, warned the federal government to halt all its policies affecting the living standards of Nigerians in 2022.
It said it would resist every attempt to inflict more pain on the citizens.
The NLC also warned the State governors starving pensioners and workers with their entitlement and the new minimum wage respectively to desist from forcing them into more poverty.
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The president of NLC, Ayuba Wabba, in his new year message made available to journalists in Abuja, specifically said the labour movement is concerned about; ”the deceit and duplicity associated with the politics of petrol price increase” by successive Nigerian governments.
”Our argument has been that there is a limit to the imposition of hardship and suffering on the fragile shoulders of the Nigerian people.
”It is gratifying that amidst the deteriorating conditions of living, organized Labour was able to rise up to ensure that the masses of our people were not completely run over by market forces enabled by the anti-people policies of the government and at the whims of shylock capitalists.
”Still, the government is not relenting in its determination to push through further increases in the pump price of petrol and which as usual had been dubbed as ‘removal of petrol subsidy’.
”Well, Organized Labour has made its position clear on this matter.
“We have told the government in very clear terms that Nigerians have suffered enough and will not endure more punishment by way of further petrol and electricity price increases.”
The labour leader stressed that the socio-economic pains inflicted by the unprecedented lockdown in 2020 continued to manifest throughout 2021, adding that the evident trails of the huge dislocation could be easily identified in the escalation and hyper-inflation of basic goods and services.
He said since Nigerians were exposed to the most turbulent and unpredictable market realities in the just concluded year, the Organised Labour would reject any further increase by all means.
”The truth is that the perennial increase by the government of the pump price of petrol is actually a transfer of government failure and inability to effectively govern to the poor masses of our country.
”We are talking of the failure of government to manage Nigeria’s four oil refineries and inability to build new ones more than thirty years after the last petrochemical refinery in Port Harcourt was commissioned; the failure to rein in smuggling; and the failure to determine empirically the quantity of petrol consumed in Nigeria.
”The shame takes a gory dimension with the fact that Nigeria is the only OPEC country that cannot refine her own crude oil,” the labour leader said.
The Nigerian government is looking at the possibility of removing the petrol subsidy in 2022 in order to save more for infrastructure development.
International financial bodies have been demanding the complete removal of petrol subsidies in Nigeria.
With the pump price at around N162 per litre, it is been mooted that the new pump price will be around N340 per litre.
Financial analysts said this will push more Nigerians below the poverty line.
