Nigerian traders have been asked not to participate in the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and Trade Union Congress, TUC’s strike action scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday 18th of May, 2016.
This is the outcome of an executive meeting held by National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS) in Abuja.
National President of the association Barrister Kenneth Ukaoha said traders nationwide should go about their normal businesses and reject being manipulated to destabilize the country.
He said though the association is not holding brief for the federal government over the deregulation of the downstream oil sector of the economy, the importance of the sector being the major source of revenue for the nation necessitates their backing government action to purge the sector of all leakages bedeviling the sector for years.
“To us the only way to do this is perhaps to do away completely with subsidy and so we applaud its disappearance in the 2016 budget. NANTS therefore commends the move by government in removing the fuel subsidy, and hopes it will forever remain buried.
“We equally hope that by government’s action, Nigerians would no longer be held by the jugular by independent marketers and those in the oil sector who have hijacked and made a mockery of the “fuel subsidy” regime with corrupt practices that have plundered the commonwealth of the people,” Ukaoha said.
Nigerian labour unions had called for a nationwide strike after the federal government hiked the pump price of petrol to N145 per litre.
