FG intimidating labour movement 

The President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, has criticized the police’s invitation of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Joe Ajaero, accusing the Nigerian government of attempting to intimidate the labour movement.

On Monday, the police summoned Ajaero for questioning regarding accusations of terrorism financing, treasonable felony, cybercrime, and other related offenses.

Osifo, speaking during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today, on Wednesday, urged the Federal Government to reveal the specific charges against Ajaero.

His words: “You could see that as of today, there was a response from our lawyer, Femi Falana, saying that the government should come clean and tell us what are the offences.

“They should open up much more because Nigerians need to know. The way it is generally perceived today is that you are muzzling the labour movement. Joe Ajaero does not present himself. Anything that he is doing, he is doing it on behalf of the members of the Nigeria Labour Congress.

“For us, we will continue to be advocates to push government to do what is right in all ramifications. The final thing that we will do is to shut down the oil and gas industry so that the refinery can work.”

Fuel Queues

Osifo, who also doubles as the president of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), stated that the persistent fuel queues in the country will continue until the government takes appropriate action.

Queues reappeared at many filling stations across the country earlier this week, with oil marketers attributing the issue to ongoing logistical challenges. He said, “Even if the queues go away in the next one week, we cannot guarantee that after one month it will not return because we are always going to have challenges in the logistics until we do what is right.
“Either we fix the pipelines so that from those coastal areas we could feed the hinterland, or we have those strategic reserves across the length and breadth of the country, maybe in the six geopolitical zones. Until we have that, we are in for it.

“So, the problem may be solved in two weeks, but I cannot guarantee that in the next two or three months, the challenges will not resurface again.”

The labour leader further suggested that establishing strategic reserves for petrol could help address the logistical challenges.

“Where we move these products when we import them are in tank farms in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Calabar mainly.

“So, when you import these products you keep it there and from there you distribute to the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, so when there are issues down South you cannot move these products to the North.

“But should we have strategic reserves you keep these products there whenever you have challenge locally or internationally you could tap into your reserves, and at the end you could be able to service the country.

“So that is one of the things we have proposed so that this logistic challenges will not be happening every day,” Osifo said.

Osifo added that PENGASSAN has proposed using technology to combat oil theft, which hinders the country’s economic growth. “We can actually deploy technology to resolve this issue,” he added.