NLC demands return to old petrol price, flays price increase

The Nigeria Labour Congress has asked the federal government to reverse the latest increase in the pump price of petrol from N123.80 to N143.8,in order to avoid confrontation with the Nigerian people.

The NLC described the upward review of petrol price by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency at this time as insensitive, saying “this might just be the last straw that would break the camel’s back.”

The congress demanded a reversal of the pump price to the old price, arguing that that the prices of crude oil in the international market had only slightly increased from the previous price before the downward review was announced two months ago.

Ayuba Wabba, the NLC president, in a statement on Thursday, described the hike in the fuel pump price and the proposed electricity tariff hike as “potent threat to run millions of Nigerians under.”

He asked the federal government to rehabilitate the refineries and disclose the timelines for this.

Wabba flayed the PPPRA executive secretary, Saidu Abdulkadir for the fuel price hike, noting that “he did not even feign pretence that government has abdicated its responsibility to protect Nigerians from the cut-throat tendencies of neo-liberal market forces.”

Wabba noted, “Nigerians would recall that the last downward review in the price of petrol was at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown. The economic benefits of the so-called “downward”