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The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has called on the Federal Government to return petrol prices to what they were as of June 2023.
Recall President Bola Tinubu declared during his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, that subsidy is gone. Consequently, the price of petroleum products immediately skyrocketed from ₦184 in Lagos to around ₦600.
However, fuel prices have now hit over ₦900 nationwide following the double increase by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) in the last two months.
Reacting to the latest hike at a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday, TUC President Festus Osifo demanded a reversion to the old price obtainable as of June last year.
“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,” he said.
Osifo called on the government to specially intervene in the sector by giving foreign exchange to Dangote Refinery at $1/N1,000 and not at the current $over 1/N1,600 exchange rate to crash petrol prices.
“The solution we are proposing if implemented will take us to the price we had as of June last year,” he stated.
The union leader stressed that there's no government in the world that doesn't intervene in its critical sector, asking the Federal Government not to ''Leave it (the oil sector) to the vagaries and gyration of our naira.”
TUC demands petrol availability
Emphasising the importance of availability, affordability and accessibility of petrol for all Nigerians, Osifo noted that the commodity is essential for all households, including those without a second-hand value car.
The trade union laid 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 (NMDPRA), give all marketers licenses to lift petrol from the Dangote Refinery.”
Osifo suggested that the NNPCL source refined petrol from other places if the Dangote Refinery is overwhelmed by Nigerias’ current daily demands.
Osifo said the NNPCL should source refined petrol from other sources if the Dangote Refinery cannot meet the current daily demands of Nigerians.
“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,” the TUC boss added.