The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) described the federal government’s decision to suspend the removal of petrol subsidy as the best option.
The federal government had earlier planned to stop subsidy payments on petroleum products from July — but on Monday, a postponement was announced due to “high inflation and economic hardship”.
Commenting on the development, Benson Upah, head of information at NLC, said the union is glad that the government “has seen the light and decided to do the right thing”.
He said the removal of petrol subsidy “would have set the country on fire”.
“There would have been an instantaneous reaction. Of course, we would have been glad to coordinate those reactions,” he said.
“But happily, they have begun to see the light. Our advice would be that they should take a lesson from the document we gave them on the so-called fuel subsidy removal.
“The answer cannot be far from domestic production.”
Upah said the decision would reduce the corruption in the system while he called on the government to fix the existing refineries or build new ones instead of importing refined petroleum products.