In view of the ongoing controversy surrounding the proposed removal of fuel subsidy, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday directed all Nigerians to get ready for an imminent showdown against policies of the federal government that are further worsening their plights.
NLC president, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar gave this directive in a statement following a press conference in Perth, Australia by minister of petroleum resources, Mrs. Dieziani Alison-Madueke claiming?? before the international community that the federal government had not taken a decision on the removal of oil subsidy and that no date has been fixed for the removal.
Instead of this endless rigmarole, the NLC has advised the government to drop the so called fuel subsidy removal and concentrate on actual governance and alleviation of suffering of? Nigerians.
Omar, however, described the statement as untrue, and calculated to mislead the international community and to lure Nigerians away from the on-going mobilisation against this anti-people policy.
?“The? truth is that President Goodluck Jonathan in his letter to the National Assembly on the Medium Term? Expenditure Framework of his? administration stated categorically that the government has decided to remove fuel subsidy and that the take-off date is January 2012. ?
“Also, the president on his way to the Commonwealth Summit in Perth, Australia, to which the petroleum inister accompanied him, had told the country that fuel subsidy must be removed as the alternative is the collapse of the economy.? So, Mrs. Alison-Madueke is not forthright on this matter and the NLC urges Nigerians not to relent in their patriotic mobilisation to resist this policy that will further impoverish the citizenry.”
He added that the issue at stake was not whether Jonathan administration was yet to take a position or was confused as to what decision to take, saying that, the patriotic issue is that fuel subsidy should not be removed.
According to him, the fundamental issue is not the per-second denials of government officials, but that the Jonathan administration should side with the Nigerian people.
He also noted that the whole debate which has pitched government and its cronies against the Nigerian people, started by the Federal Government which is still expending huge public funds on this maneuver.
He said: “The position of the NLC is that our oil resources which should be an advantage to the country should be used for the benefit of the people; that as Nigerians, we should have comparative advantage on prices of petroleum products over citizens of non-oil producing states.”
Omar also said that the NLC rejected the petroleum minister’s lamentation that government? could not check the fraud in subsidy because, “we are not in a military regime, the market forces of supply and demand have to be allowed to a certain extent,” adding that such claim is a rationalisation of criminality and an admission of failure.
?“We do not need a military regime to deal with criminality, what we need is a democratic process of bringing culprits before a court of competent jurisdiction and dispensing of justice.
?“The minister’s announcement that a Think-Tank is being proposed by government on the subsidy issue is laughable as government should have done so and thought through the process before announcing subsidy removal,” he added.