The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has alleged intentional sabotage of the oil and gas sector in order to ensure the continued payment of fuel subsidies and the neglect of the refineries at the detriment of the Nigerian economy.

This stance was made known by Joe Ajaero, the NLC Deputy Chairman, on Tuesday, during an interview with Channels TV ‘Sunrise Daily’ programme monitored by Ripples Nigeria.

The thorny issue of the proposed removal of fuel subsidy has dominated the polity with the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, clarifying that the Federal Government had decided to maintain the status quo while tweaking the 2022 budget for that purpose.

In his statement during the interview, Ajaero said, “We can’t deceive people all the time regarding the issue of fuel subsidies. We have to legalise the illegal refineries which is the purview of the regulatory bodies.

“The people who are benefitting from the subsidy — the marketers — are not our members but regarding our staff, we are the most affected because jobs are being taken away with the refining of crude oil outside of the country.

“Nigeria has not been able to boost up production while revamping the refineries but the FG has refused to increase the capacities of our refineries which has led to a decadence in the society.

“Some of the stakeholders intentionally refused to revamp the refineries in order to continue the importation of crude and the problem is not subsidy in itself

“If we can agree that there is subsidy or choose to import due to a beneficial cost benefit analysis, that is the job of the FG but insofar they have refused to do the right thing, labour will continue its agitation.

“”The issue of subsidy has affected all facets of the economy especially in the power sector too with the private companies being subsidized for their businesses.

Nobody in the working class is a beneficiary and questions should be asked on who are the real beneficiaries of subsidies?”