The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has urged Nigerians to hold President Muhammadu Buhari responsible for the acute fuel scarcity across the country, resulting in hardship for the Nigerian masses.

Speaking through a communique issued at the end of its Central Working Committee (CWC) on Monday, in Lagos, factional president of NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero, said his union frowned at the recurrence fuel scarcity and persistent long queues at filling stations across the country.

“The NLC frowns at the reappearance and persistence of long queues at the filling stations across the nation, owing to scarcity of petroleum products recalling that fuel scarcity has returned and yet to disappear in the past months.

“The CWC-in-session, while directing the Nigerian public to hold the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari responsible for the pains and all inconveniences occasioned by the prevailing fuel scarcity, advises the Buhari-led administration to do all practically possible to reverse the trend and ensure that such does not happen again,” he said.

However, the perceived inefficiencies in the power sector by the operators have resulted in the calls by the Ajaero-led NLC to have observed with great concern the huge failure and ineffectiveness of the privatisation policy of the Federal Government.

“Before our very eyes, we have witnessed unprecedented power failure as a result of the steady drop in power generation. Presently, the nation is faced with sharp drop of power generation to 2,000MW and we are yet to see the end of the abysmal drop,” he said.

Ajaero, on behalf of his team, instructively advised the Federal Government to remind itself of the huge failure of the privatisation of the power sector in a wider spectrum and stop any further privatisation plan it might have.

“The CWC-in-session believes that going ahead with privatisation of other national institutions like Nigerian Railway and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which the Federal Government plans to unbundle, will certainly portend greater socio-economic danger for the nation. Similarly, CWC-in-session suggests that the Federal Government should commence the process of withdrawing all approved licences availed miners, who have not mobilised to sites to commence business,” he stated.

Meanwhile, following the longest fuel scarcity which has remained unresolved for months now, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency in the oil sector.

In a statement made available to the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, president of PENGASSAN, Comrade Francis Johnson, argued that the solution to the incessant acute fuel scarcity was not reliance on importation of refined petroleum products which had defied such solution, but building of domestic refining capacity to cater for the domestic market.

According to him, “issues like pipeline vandalism, Joint Ventures (JV) cash call, corruption, state of the refineries and others should be addressed.

“The solution to the problem on ground is not importation. Today they import 50 cargoes, tomorrow they important more. If they keep importing, the situation will keep coming back. There are serious issues like corruption, vandalism, JV cash call, state of the refineries and others which the Federal Government should declare a state of emergency on,” he said.

Johnson said there should be a dialogue on how to remedy the problems.

When asked how he felt about the return of subsidy by the Federal Government, he argued that it would not solve the challenges.

The Federal Government had reintroduced subsidy which is put at N5.84 per litre. Petroleum marketers were given over 58 per cent of the second quarter import allocation of petroleum products as against a paltry of 12 per cent allocated to them in the first quarter. (Nigerian Tribune)

•Photo shows Comrade Ajaero.

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