TUC demands return to June 2023 petrol price

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has called on the federal government to revert petrol prices to their June 2023 rates.

The union’s call follows a recent increase in fuel prices by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.

Before President Bola Tinubu’s removal of the petrol subsidy on May 29, 2023, the product was priced between N195 and N238 per litre across the country.

However, the latest adjustments have seen petrol prices soar to N998 per litre in Lagos and N1,003 per litre in Abuja. 

The Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) attributed the price hike to the challenges of importing the product.

This increase has attracted criticism, with the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) warning that it will exacerbate inflation.

At a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, TUC President Festus Osifo urged the government to intervene by providing foreign exchange support to Dangote refinery to address the sector’s challenges.

“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,” Osifo said.

He emphasised the need for the government to offer foreign exchange to Dangote refinery at $1/N1,000 rather than the current rate of over $1/N1,600 to effectively reduce petrol prices.

“The solution we are proposing, if implemented, will take us to the price we had as of June last year,” he added.

Osifo stressed that no government in the world neglects its critical sectors and that the federal government should not leave the oil sector to the “vagaries and gyration of our naira.”

Additionally, Osifo urged the government to issue licenses to independent marketers in the country.

“We want the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), to give all marketers licenses to lift petrol from the Dangote Refinery,” he said.

The TUC president noted that if the availability of petrol is compromised, it will pose a significant problem to many Nigerians.

“If, for example, the production from Dangote Refinery is less than 15 million litres per day, it is not sufficient,” Osifo said.

“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.”