The organised labour in the country has threatened a nationwide strike if the Federal Government goes ahead to implement the deregulation of the nation’s downstream oil and gas sector without meeting the set precedent conditions to cushion the effect on the masses.
The threat is coming against the backdrop of President Umar Yar’Adua’s insistence that deregulating the sector is inevitable to achieve development in the oil and gas industry.
President General of the TUC, Comrade Peter Esele, decried and rebuffed government’s decision on full deregulation if the precedent conditions that would alleviate the hardship on Nigerians were not met, noting that it would negatively impact on the masses.
He said that in other parts of the world, governments were devising all kinds of measures such as tax breaks, bailout, interest rate reduction and nationalisation to alleviate the hardship of the economic meltdown on their citizens.
“It is our belief that full deregulation only means an uncontrolled price increases in petrol, kerosene and other petroleum products, which is not what Nigeria needs at the moment,” he stated.
General Secretary of Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO), Comrade Biodun Aremu, who expressed disappointment at the Yar’Adua-led government, assured government of a total strike by Nigerian workers if the deregulation policy was implemented as against the wish of the people. “Who are the stakeholders?” he told Baroness Glenys Kinnock of Britain. “We are talking about meeting and talking with the masses through the organised labour. The outside world should know that Yar’Adua’s government is on its own and not people-oriented,” he said.
Deputy President of NLC, Comrade Peters Adeyemi, reacting to Yar’Adua’s insistence, said that government should expect a total showdown if it kicked off deregulation. He, however, assured Nigerian workers of full protection of their legitimate rights by the NLC, noting it was time Nigerians arose and stood against all government’s anti-people policies.
According to him, “The truth is that Nigerian workers have never really benefited from windfall in oil revenue, so government should stop fooling us.”
Calling for a state intervention instead of deregulation, Adeyemi said that the decision of government to move for the removal of subsidies on petroleum and full deregulation of the down-stream sector of the oil industry was part of the policies of the World Bank.
“This decision is contrary to approaches adopted by the developed economies that champion the capitalism and the ‘market logic’. These countries like the US, Britain, Germany, France, Spain and others have been using state funds in billion of dollars to bail out industries in virtually all sectors as ways to preserve jobs, income and welfare of their people and national economies,”he stated.