OUR STAND ON DEREGULATION REMAINS THE SAME

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) wishes to reassure workers and Nigerian people that it remains, as ever before, strongly opposed to the total deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry. Congress needs to give this assurance following Federal Government's unilateral decision to embark on full-fledged deregulation beginning from November 1, 2009 in spite of Congress' warnings of the imminent dangers deregulation poses to our economy and our people.

Congress has stated, time without number, and repeats once again; that the deregulation policy will inflict untold hardships on the poor and ordinary people of Nigeria who constitute more than 70 percent of Nigeria's over 140 million people. This is against the flawed position of government which argues that it needs to deregulate because it can no longer sustain the huge subsidy that it pays out for fuel, or that it will through deregulation, reduce the level of distortions or corruption involved in oil transactions and that it will offer more benefits to Nigerians because the oil market will become more efficient and the resulting benefits will be passed on to Nigerians in the form of lower product prices, better quality of service and ease as well as constant availability of the product.

These are fallacies that have been peddled by successive governments right from the military era up to the eight years of former President Olusegun Obasanjo under whom oil prices were increased for a record number of eleven times.

Previous attempts at deregulation which peaked at the full deregulation of kerosene and diesel products clearly demonstrate that whatever the arguments advanced by the Nigerian government, deregulation cannot and does not reduce the hardships faced by the Nigerian consumer; it only increases it. We therefore need no prophet to tell us what will happen when the most important of the petroleum products – premium motor spirit (PMS) or petrol – is fully deregulated as the government has now decided to do from November 1, 2009.

Congress therefore wishes to assert that it remains opposed now more than ever before to deregulation of the oil and gas sector in general and of petroleum products in particular. Government's decision, if implemented, will bring stupendous wealth for the very few who, over the years, have ruined Nigeria and bring more hardship to the vast majority of the Nigerian people among whom workers and their families form a large number.

Like we said before, this opposition is not ideological; it is based upon simple commonsense and a deep patriotic commitment to the defence of the country's interests. Congress has already painstakingly taken it upon itself to mobilize Nigerians against deregulation in rallies and mass protests it embarked upon across the country since May and which will culminate in Abuja on October 29, 2009.

While Congress understands that governments all over the world are desperate to shore up its revenue base in the face of the global economic distress, it however strongly believes that this desperation cannot be achieved in Nigeria by endangering the welfare of workers and ordinary Nigerians, which deregulation translates to or symbolizes.

The Nigeria Labour Congress, therefore, calls on its affiliates and the masses to remain resolute in their opposition to deregulation or any policy which is against the interest of the masses and prepare themselves for a fierce battle if and when the Federal Government makes real its plans to inflict more woes on already distressed Nigerians come November 1, 2009.

Comrade John E. Odah

General Secretary