The Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress have called on the Federal Government to proffer a lasting solution to the petroleum scarcity and soaring prices in the country.
The heads of NLC and the TUC, Ayuba Wabba and Mr Festus Osifo issued this warning in a press release, authorized by them on Saturday in Abuja.
According to the comrades, fuel shortages, price hikes and avoidable long queues in filling stations are making life hard for Nigerians.
The labour presidents advised the Nigerian Government to end the regime of unwarranted price hikes and fuel shortages in the country.
They declared: “No excuse is good enough to cripple the country.
“If there are challenges, they should be fixed. We have a government in power to fix challenges not to make excuses.”
They revealed that the continuous shortages of petrol, had caused hardship mong the citizenry.
“All these have tragic consequences for the Nigerian people and debilitating effects on the health of the economy which itself is not in a good state.
“We are reliably informed that the shortage is deliberately fostered by players in the downstream sector in other to hike the price far above the government-approved threshold.
“It is an added problem when non-state actors begin to arrogate to themselves the power to determine the price of a litre of fuel far above the rate pegged by government in the current subsidy regim.”
The labour leaders stated that the taxpayers currently spend trillions of Naira yearly for fuel subsidy with with nothing to show for it, saying that the same people are being forced to pay over N240 per litre when the current ex-depot price remained N148.19k per litre.
The labour chiefs added that the huge subsidy payment had not benefited the Nigerians at all.
According to them, the constant hardship would impede growth and development of the citizens.
“It is more disturbing that the government is equally demonstrating a high level of culpability in the unwholesome situation by its silence and unwillingness to frontally and publicly address the harrowing experiences in the current situation.
“No concerned and responsive government will bury its head in the sands like the proverbial Ostrich while the citizens are being brutally exploited.
“We are strongly worried that leaving our energy security and sovereignty in the hands of unscrupulous capitalists and their collaborators will further plunge this nation into the economic abyss we are working hard to avoid.”
They charged the regulatory and law enforcement bodies to intervene in order to protect the interest of Nigerians.
