The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has criticised the President Bola Tinubu-led federal government for being so tough on citizens by allowing the continued hike in the price of petrol.
Politics Nigeria observed that petrol price was raised from N537 per litre to N617 at some filling stations operated by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) in Abuja on Tuesday.
The NNPCL and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority blamed the hike in petrol price on market forces and the exchange rate.
But the NLC has threatened to take “matters into its own hands” following the decision by the NNPCL to increase petrol price across the country.
The NLC, in a statement issued by its national president, Joe Ajaero, accused the Tinubu-led government of taking from the poor to pay the rich and unleashing suffering, hardship and sorrow upon Nigerians.
The Labour union said it had restrained itself from making further comments publicly on the vexatious issues around the recent but unfortunate unilateral hike in the price of petrol, which was in the guise of “the so-called subsidy withdrawal.”
“The government of Nigeria seems to have been misled into believing that resorting to impunity and imperiousness in governance in a democracy is a beneficial option as it pursues its stated and unstated objectives,” Ajaero said.
“It is this belief that we are sure has continued shaping the actions of this government since its inauguration on May 29, 2023, to continue inflicting mindless and heartless pains on the populace one after the other without the decency of embracing the tenets of democracy which requires wide and deep stakeholder consultations on weighty matters of state.
“We were also witnesses to the actions of the federal government in procuring an unholy injunction from the courts which were served us in gestapo style by trucks laden with fully armed soldiers and policemen.
“In all of these provocations, we remained committed to the principles of the rule of law, good conscience and democracy so that we can continue to be the moral compass for leaders in the public space. This explained our decision to suspend action on the proposed strike.”
The labour union, however, stated that rather than reciprocate the goodwill of Nigerian workers, the federal government “insisted on threading the path of dictatorship” and seeking to impoverish the people further by taking steps that could only be described as “robbing the people of Nigeria to pay and feed the rich”.
Speaking on the next line of action, the congress said; “As a result, if the government does not want to stop these fortuitous actions that it is pursuing in the name of palliatives, we will be forced to constructively review our engagement with the government on this vexatious issue and take matters in our own hands.”
