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The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has demanded an immediate wage award for Nigerian workers to cushion the impact of soaring petrol prices, warning that rising transport costs would further deepen poverty and trigger increases in food, school fees, rents and other essential services.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, who made the demand in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday, said petrol was selling for about N1,430 per litre in major urban centres and even higher in some less accessible parts of the country.
Recent increases in petrol prices have followed a rise in international crude prices, with filling stations adjusting pump prices as wholesale costs climbed.
Ajaero said the increases had severely eroded workers’ purchasing power and threatened to worsen the cost-of-living crisis as transporters passed higher fuel costs to consumers.
“These new costs continue to inflict or deepen poverty among the populace, stressing the quality of life to the limits,” he said.
While attributing part of the latest price surge to renewed conflict in the Gulf, the NLC president argued that Nigeria’s status as an oil producer should provide some protection for citizens against international energy price shocks.
“As a nation, and as a people endowed with enormous fossil resources, we are deserving of a certain level of protection or buffer against the gales from the Gulf,” he said.
Ajaero consequently demanded an immediate “reasonable wage award” for workers, alongside increased crude oil supply in naira to domestic refineries and expansion of the country’s petroleum storage capacity.
He said the measures would reduce Nigeria’s exposure to external shocks, strengthen energy security and create jobs and economic value.
The labour leader also backed government intervention through subsidies or palliatives during periods of severe economic pressure.
“There is nothing wrong with government subsidising the needs of citizens, especially in emergency situations like this,” he said.
Ajaero argued that government had additional fiscal room because crude oil was trading substantially above the benchmark price used for the federal budget.
He criticised the importation of crude by domestic refineries, describing it as inconsistent with efforts to build local refining capacity in an oil-producing country.
The NLC president warned that organised labour would continue to speak out and take necessary lawful action to protect workers and other Nigerians from worsening economic hardship.
