The Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Thursday demanded the return of petrol prices to what they were as of June 2023.
At a press briefing in Abuja, TUC National President, Mr. Festus Osifo advised the government to provide foreign exchange to Dangote Refinery.
On Wednesday, retail stations of NNPC Limited (NNPCL) raised the price of petrol to N1,030 from N897/litre in Abuja. In Lagos it was hiked to N998/litre from N868/litre. Other locations witnessed similar price hikes, a development that triggered anger among Nigerians.
The Nigeria Labour Congress has since condemned the increase. “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.
“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”.
Pump price of fuel averaged N545.83/litre in June 2023.
The TUC leader harped on the availability, affordability, and accessibility of petrol for all Nigerians, saying that the commodity is essential for all households, even those without a second-hand value car.
The congress 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 give all marketers licenses to lift petrol from the Dangote Refinery”.
Osifo said that NNPCL should source refined petrol from other places, if the Dangote Refinery cannot meet the current daily demands of Nigerians.
He said: “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”.
