Organized labour said it would on April 10 embark on another nationwide mass protests and organized civil disobedience to press home their resentment for the planned increase in the prices of petroleum products.
This could be a repeat of the mass action that paralysed the nation following the fuel price hike on January 1, 2012 and forced the government to back down.
Most Nigeria also believe that another fuel price hike would mean an end to the social contract of the federal government with Nigerians since fuel subsidy is the only social welfare scheme that is operational. But organised labour was reacting to President Goodluck Jonathan’s statement last week in Lagos that the government would still remove fuel subsidy after due consultations with Nigerians.
Peter Esele, president-general, Trade Union Congress (TUC) said that the decision for the mass protest has already been taken at the last National Executive Council meeting of the congress and that labour, working with civil society groups, have already started mobilizing for protest.
According to him, the organised labour have also demanded the resignation of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, coordinating minister for the Economy and minister of Finance, who is a foremost advocate of fuel subsidy removal on the grounds that she has told Nigerians “too many contradicting stories on fuel subsidy.”
He said that the Finance minister last year claimed that N1.2 trillion had fraudulently gone into subsidy, and that the government will continue to pay subsidy until all the nation’s refineries are repaired and made to work at optimal capacity, and all the depots rehabilitated. Reiterating their readiness to embark on protests on said date, Esele maintained that Nigerians will resist any new increase in petroleum products prices with “everything humanly possible”. The NLC had earlier called on Jonathan to drop the plan, which it insisted would deepen the suffering of several members of organised labour and other Nigerians who are not part of “the affluent middle class.”
It said that even though it did not know the form the consultations the President spoke about would take, it had a position that fuel price increase was inimical to the well-being of Nigerians.
Comrade Promise Adewusi, acting president, NLC had said that Labour’s opposition to fuel subsidy removal could only change if Nigerians took a decision to embrace suffering. He had said, “We have a subsisting position on the issue of the removal of fuel subsidy.
It would recalled the President Jonathan had said last week in Lagos stirred the fuel subsidy removal hornets while speaking at the Nigeria Summit organised by The Economist. According to him, “We cannot continue to waste resources meant for a greater number of Nigerians to subsidise the affluent middle class, who are the main beneficiaries (of fuel subsidy).”
Anyone that takes this leader must be living a fool's paradise! They are mostly unserious set of people who are just out to deceive Nigerians!
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