‘Nigerians are getting poorer’ — NLC asks FG to reverse petrol price hike

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has asked the federal government to reverse the petrol price hike.

On Wednesday, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited increased the price of petrol across its retail outlets.

In a statement, Joe Ajaero, president of the NLC, said the labour union is “dismayed” by the petrol hike without commensurate financial capacity of Nigerians.

Ajaero said the latest petrol price hike has “grossly altered the calculation” of Nigerians, who are still trying to adjust to the current economic realities.

“We challenge the government to go to the drawing board and present us with a blueprint for inclusive economic growth and national development instead of this spasmodic ad hocism and palliative policy,” the statement reads.

“It needs no stating the fact that the latest wave of increase has grossly altered the calculations of Nigerians once again at a time they were reluctantly coming to terms with their new realities.

“It will further deepen poverty as production capacities dip and more jobs are lost with multidimensional negative effects.

“In light of this, we urge the government to immediately reverse this rate hike as previous increases did not produce any good results. People only got poorer.

“But more fundamentally, the government should be bold enough to tell Nigerians in advance the destination it wants to take the country.”