. Says sudden removal insensitive to masses’ plight
Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), today, said civil society organisations (CSOs), over 130 million multidimensionally poor Nigerians, millions of jobless youths and all lovers of democracy should protest the Federal Government’s abrupt and insensitive removal of petrol subsidy.
HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, accused the leadership of the organised labour of working against the interest of the poor Nigerians by going into selfish negotiations with the government and terminating the planned nationwide strike scheduled to commence tomorrow.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC), yesterday agreed to suspend the planned action after reaching a seven-point agreement with the government.
HURIWA said: “The nation’s inflation is galloping like never before and the informal sector is yet to recover from the hardship caused by the senseless cash swap policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“Yet, the government deemed it fit to abruptly remove fuel subsidy without palliatives in place, without getting the nation’s four refineries to work, without transportation arrangement for Nigerian workers, without fulfilling its promises of the conversion of car engines from petrol to gas, amongst many others.”
The group stressed that the Organised Labour betrayed the Nigerian people by agreeing to suspend its planned strike scheduled to commence on Wednesday.
It also accused the judiciary of being “captured by a recklessly controlling administration going to court to stop civil and democratic liberties such as embarking on strike and protesting the senseless and not-well-thought-out subsidy removal, which has caused Nigerians untold hardship amid skyrocketing food prices and inflation.”
The statement reads further: “Since NLC/TUC have abandoned the masses and are busy negotiating for themselves and their members who are less than 5% of the working and struggling masses of Nigeria, the organised civil society community alongside the unemployed youths, and lovers of democracy should go ahead and organise and not agonise but to implement far-reaching civil disobedience actions including popular protests to reject the new pump price.
“The 800 million dollars loan from the World Bank which the government and the organised Labour unions are (allegedly) discussing on how to share amongst themselves is just a drop in the ocean and wouldn’t ameliorate the high costs of fuel, kerosene and diesel in Nigeria with over 100 million absolutely poor households.”
Since NLC/TUC have abandoned the masses… the organised civil society community alongside the unemployed youths, and lovers of democracy should go ahead and organise and not agonise but to implement far-reaching civil disobedience actions including popular protests to reject the new pump price.
Government’s insensitivity
HURIWA, in an earlier statement yesterday, had accused the new administration of President Bola Tinubu of insensitivity over the abrupt removal of the fuel subsidy.
It said the government is unfeeling towards the plight of Nigerians at a time the nation and the informal sector is just recovering from the economic crisis occasioned by the naira scarcity caused by the Central Bank of Nigeria under the immediate past administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The group said the coincidental inauguration of the Dangote Refinery in Lagos and the removal of fuel subsidy are suspect and a pointer to the fact that many government officials allegedly turned investors in the new refinery and orchestrated subsidy removal to monopolize and maximize their profit.
Like the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), the group also called on Tinubu to probe the “missing” $2.1 billion and N3.1 trillion public funds of oil revenues budgeted as fuel subsidy payments and unaccounted for between 2016 and 2019, as documented by the Auditor-General of the Federation.
HURIWA also knocked the NNPC Limited for saying the volume of petrol consumed daily in Nigeria may drop by 30% after the removal of subsidy even as the country’s estimated 66 million litres daily consumption had been contested by top economists.
Furthermore, it faulted the government’s promise to review the present N30,000 National Minimum Wage as a way to cushion the removal of subsidy on petrol, saying the review of the minimum wage was long overdue before the subsidy removal controversy.
The statement continued: “The planned review of minimum wage is long overdue and not a justification for subsidy removal and fuel pump price increase because less than 2% of Nigerians are employed in the public sector with nearly 50% in the informal sector and over 26% of unemployed people in the country with others such as pensioners, the sick and lastly children and students.
“Aside public sector workers, most other Nigerians are seriously not captured by the public wages upgrade. So, the wage review isn’t a solution at all. Salary increase in most jurisdictions occur with changing economic trends and high cost of living and not necessarily when government arbitrarily decides to inflict economic suicide on a massive scale such as was done by the new President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, when he announced the pulling out of the so-called fuel subsidy without reaching any consensus with the Organized Labour and the civil society.
“The decision of the NLC and TUC to take industrial action to force the government to return to status quo ante bellum is legal, constitutional, popular and pro-poor. We urge the Organized Labour to eschew selfishness and maintain their stand that concrete measures must be implemented such as repairs of public refineries, investigation of the petroleum sub-sector of the economy from 2015-2023.
“The probe of the subsidy claims and payments since 2015 till date and the investigation of the quantity of fuel that are consumed within the Nigerian domestic market to ascertain accurate statistical data of accurate amount of fuel supply and purchases by Nigerians.
“HURIWA will sue the government if the investigation of the subsidy heists is not done and the culprits named, shamed and punished as the consumption rate under subsidy regime is fraudulent and unscientific.”
It added that “CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, at the Dangote Refinery inauguration said the owners had paid 70% of the loan taken for the $18billion project. Nigerians want to know how the 70% of $9billionn loan was paid back.
“Evidently, the subsidy removal was allegedly planned and agreed by the government as a precondition for Dangote to build a refinery when the Western world is moving away from fossil fuels. The removal of the subsidy is to maximize profits at the expense of the common man.”
