Trade Union Congress has called for immediate reversal of petrol prices to what they were as of June 2023.
The Union, during a press briefing in Abuja, advised the government to provide foreign exchange to the Dangote refinery.
While speaking, the TUC National President, Festus Osifo, said, “We want the price of the product to go below what it was before; not just reverse to what it was before but to go below.
“The solution we are proposing if implemented will take us to the price we had as of June last year,” Osifo stated,
stressing that “there is no government in the world that doesn’t intervene in its critical sector” and that the Federal Government “shouldn’t leave it (the oil sector) to the vagaries and gyration of our naira”.
The TUC leader harped on the availability, affordability, and accessibility of petrol for all Nigerians, saying that the commodity is essential for all Nigerian households, even those without a second-hand value car.
The trade union placed its demands along the lines of affordability, availability, and accessibility, saying, “We want the Federal Government to, through Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority give all marketers licenses to lift petrol from the Dangote Refinery.”
Osifo said the NNPCL should source refined petrol from other places if the Dangote Refinery cannot meet the current daily demands of Nigerians.
“If it is not available, it is a problem. If, for example, the production from Dangote Refinery is less than 15 million litres per day, it is not sufficient.
“So, while efforts are being made to ramp up production from Dangote Refinery, what we are demanding is that we should look for every other means as we are ramping up production, we should source for that difference and bring it in for a while until Dangote can get to that level where the production is sufficient to get to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria. For us, that is key because it will address the issue of availability,” the TUC boss stated.