The Presidency has stated that it would continue to engage and dialogue with the union leaders to achieve same goal.
This follows the threat by the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, to embark on an indefinite strike if the pump price of petrol increases from the existing N617 naira.
The NLC President, Joe Ajaero at the African Trade Union Alliance meeting held in Abuja on Monday, threatened to shut down Nigeria economy by proceeding on a total strike if there is a hike in the petrol pump price.
Ajaero averred that Nigerians had suffered enough from the policies of the Bola Tinubu government and will not take kindly any pump price hike that would worsen the situation.
Ajuri Ngelale, the Presidential Spokesman, reacting to the statement said that President Bola Tinubu was working hard to ameliorate the hardship in the country and efforts are underway to stabilise the economy.
Ngelale asserted that every government action was aimed at the most urgent and the most efficient amelioration of those difficult conditions facing our people.
‘’The labour union absolutely does represent the interests of Nigerian workers and our role as a government and particularly is to ensure that every government action was aimed at the most urgent and the most efficient amelioration of those difficult conditions facing our people”.
“With respect to energy cost and prices, let us be very clear that the deregulation of the market means that market conditions that are decided outside of the shores of any one country will determine the price of these commodities.
“The notion that the government is controlling or is leveraging in any way the cost of these commodities in the country is a total misunderstanding of the market dynamics in the petroleum sector.
“The President will continue to engage in effective and direct dialogue with the labour unions, and he is committed to living up to every word and every letter of the agreement made so far, and we expect that such agreements are not going to be tied to vagaries of international petroleum market that Nigeria does not have control over”.
