Subsidy Removal: NLC Meeting With FG Ends In Deadlock

Labour faults NNPCL over release of new petrol pump price
The organised Labour and the Federal government promise to reconvene in no distant time

Eko Hot Blog reports that the meeting between the Nigerian Government representatives and the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC that was intended to address the announcement of new petroleum prices has ended in deadlock.

The meeting, which lasted several hours, took place on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

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Speaking to State House Correspondents at the end of the meeting Wednesday night, a Director in the defunct Tinubu-Shetimma Campaign Organization, Dele Alake said there was a robust discussion with everyone speaking with one voice as regards the impact of the new price regime of petroleum products on Nigerians.

Alake said: “We have been deliberating on finding very amicable resolutions to the issue at hand, to the queue and all of that and the increase in pump price. We had a very robust engagement.

“We cross-fertilized ideas, ideas flew from all sides and there is one thing that is remarkable even from the Labour side, and that is Nigeria. We are all looking at the peace, progress and stability of Nigeria. That is what is paramount.

“Of course the NNPCL GCEO, Mr Kyari, is here, we cannot go into details now because the talks are still ongoing. We cannot finish everything at one setting, so we have adjourned now; we are continuing the talks at a later date very shortly.

“But the point is that the talks are ongoing and it’s always better for all sides to keep talking with a view to arriving at a very amicable resolution that will be in the longer term interest for all Nigerians. That is as much as we can say now.”

Also speaking, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Joe Ajaero and his Trade Union Congress (TUC), counterpart, Festus Osifo, insisted that no consensus was reached and that government must return to statusquo and continue with the dialogue.

Organized Labour said the meeting would reconvene after they have briefed their bosses (workers) at a yet to be determined time.

According to Ajaero, “As far as Labour is concerned, we didn’t have a consensus in this meeting.”

He faulted the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) over an official release published hours earlier reviewing the petrol pump price in its filling stations nationwide.

He said the price increase puts the Labour Unions in a difficult position on the negotiation table.

“That’s the principle of negotiation. You don’t put the partner or ask them to negotiate under gunpoint. The prayer of the NLC is that we go back to statusquo, negotiate, think of alternatives and all the effects and how to manage the effects this action is going to have on the people. If it is an action that must take off.

“The subsidy provision has been made up to the end of June. And before then, conscious people, labour management, and the government should be able to think of what will happen at the end of June. You don’t start it before the time,” he added.

The President of TUC, Festus Osifo, said the unions would go and consult with their members before deciding on the next meeting with the government.

Osifo said: “If you listen to President Tinubu during the inauguration at eagles square on Monday, he said one of the hallmarks of this administration is going to be dialogue, is going to be consultation, that they are not going to lord it over us. I am trying to paraphrase what he said, that he is not going to be a dictator. And what has happened so far has not shown what was written in his address.

“So, all we said before now was that we ought to have sat down, have this conversation before anything could have happened. We have been open to conversations; we started it in 2020 up to 2021 and part of 2022. But at the end of the day, they told us that they were not removing subsidies.

“So, there was no conversation whatsoever, so for over a year, there weren’t formal engagements and formal meetings and because there weren’t formal engagements and formal meetings that is why we found ourselves in this.
“If we had met before now, we would have proposed a lot of things. We have experts in our midst who could have proffered some solutions, because our own is, how do we protect the Nigerian people and the workforce?