Labour stood firm last night against deregulation.
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) leaders rose from a crucial meeting in Abuja, saying no to fuel price increases – the likely fallout of a deregulated downstream sector of the oil industry.
They set conditions for the government before it can deregulate the sector.
These are:
•building of additional refinery in the next one year, either by the government or the private sector, to ease crude refining;
•providing an enabling environment for meaningful restructuring of the petroleum sector;
•restructuring of the sector;
•repairing of bad roads; and
•addressing the power problem.
Labour said those conditions must be met within one year, if the government must deregulate.
Civil society groups were at the stormy meeting where the leadership reportedly went soft on the policy, which the majority rejected.
Labour was set before the meeting to surrender in the anti-deregulation battle.
The NLC said the government dazed it with “substitution by elimination strategy” in which it consulted with many associations, including traditional rulers and students, convincing them that deregulation is good.
Deregulation is the Federal Government’s magic pill for all the ailments of the downstream sector of the oil industry. Workers say it will bring high fuel prices and more hardship. The government disagrees, saying it will make products available and crash prices.
NLC President Abdul Waheed Omar said in order not to act in isolation, the Congress agreed to discuss with the government but maintained its stand that it would not support deregulation. But now that many other associations have supported the policy on condition that the government does some things before implementing the policy, he said, the Congress set up a committee to take a decision on deregulation.
The Committee, headed by Deputy President Peters Adeyemi, submitted a 108-page report to the NEC. NEC members then met to discuss the report.
Before the business session, Omar said: “Comrades, you know that when government decided to increase fuel price, they never consulted any body. Perhaps the best you hear is rumour, the next you hear is announcement and then increase in fuel price. But this government, because they are better informed, they came up with a different strategy. This strategy is that they started consultation. I do not need to tell how far and wide government has reached in consultation but what is very clear is that government, apart from individuals who have been meeting in opposition of deregulation, what we have noted is a kind of institutional recognition combating deregulation.
“In fact, every leadership, including the traditional rulers, met with the government and said that while they are not opposed to deregulation, let government fulfil some conditions.”
Omar said he was surprised when students were quoted in the news as saying they agreed to deregulation.
“This is the strategy that, whether we like it or not, government employed. They are strategies that government brought in to isolate the NLC and the working people and the labour movement entirely. However, if you are waging a war, the best thing for you is to have only one battle field at a time but if you open so many battle fields, unless you have multiples of soldiers, even then your casualties will certainly have to multiply according to the number of the battle fields, in accordance with the number of battles that you fought.
“This strategy of government of narrowing down is what caused us to also adjust or draw a new line of approach and the new line of approach is when government met us for consultation, do we now sit down and say ‘no, we know where we stand, we are completely opposed to deregulation and, therefore, we do not have any need to consult with any body’ and meanwhile consultations are going on with other people. It is like what we may describe as substitution by elimination and whenever they conquer whichever group, they will say this is done and they will move forward.”
Omar, however, assured Nigerians that having a change of tactics does not mean that the NLC compromised.
“But if there is a change in tactics, that does not mean that our course is not just and popular and, therefore, we adopted the strategy of also accepting when government also requested that they wanted to dialogue with us. We said that there was nothing wrong in dialoging with the government but that does not in any way predicted our submission because we already have our submission at congress and have been standing by it. And we said when we put our heads together, members of the National Administrative Council (NAC).”
Omar said the first meeting with the NLC was with the NAC. The meeting was before the last rally and when they saw how successful the last rally was they sought to dialogue with us again. So they brought in the NEC and CWC.