The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate in the February presidential election, Barr Adewole Adebayo, has described as hypocritical the attitudes of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) towards the fuel subsidy debacle.
According to him, the Labour Unions were in support of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and especially, the Labour Party promised to remove the fuel subsidy if voted into office.
He wondered why the unions, especially the TUC, are now criticising the removal of the fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu.
Adebayo said it was too late in the day for the labour unions to be complaining about the fuel subsidy removal when they should have tackled the Buhari administration who initiated the removal process while he was in office.
He stated, “The Labour Unions supported the removal of the subsidy with the political parties. They are now looking for negotiation and discussion but when the government that made that policy was around, they didn’t negotiate.
The TUC and the NLC were not overseas when the Appropriation Act 2023 was passed. Where were they to engage on that issue? When the debate was still in the open as to whether we should form a government that would remove subsidies or not, they went with the people that said they would remove subsidies. As long we continue and allow people to take advantage of the leadership of Nigerian workers, we would not address this issue.
There are two positions you can take on subsidy. Remove or not to remove. They were on the side of removal. They were also around when the immediate past government passed the PIA. PENGASSAN, the Industrial Union, representing them, was supporting it. PENGASSAN met in Calabar and said the subsidy must go.
In the course of electioneering, the Appropriation Act was passed. They didn’t fight or argue with the government, and the government passed the law. The reason why we are discussing this now is because of what I consider a mistake from the president to make a policy statement on that sensitive issue in an unclear way in his inauguration address which has now caused some panic before the policy would take effect.
The results of the election showed that the people also wanted the removal of subsidy because if you look at the votes, you would see that the voters voted overwhelmingly for the political parties who said they are going to remove fuel subsidy. They voted for APC, PDP, and Labour Party in that order.”
Commenting further on the subsidy removal, he said he was not surprised at the pronouncement of President Tinubu that the fuel subsidy ceases to exist.
He however frowned at what he termed poor policy Communication of the president to the people, who he said, are going to bear the brunt of the effect of the removal.
He insisted that it was only SDP that campaigned that it would continue the subsidy arrangement by removing the corruption inherent in the process.
Despite the legal landmines around the Petroleum Industry Act, he stated, he would have negotiated his way out to continue the fuel subsidy, if his party, the SDP had won the presidential election.
