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  • Jonathan under attack over poor state of economy

    Jonathan under attack over poor state of economy

    NLC, governor, The Economist knock GDP rebasing

    ICAN: it’s okay

    The President and his Finance experts were under attack yesterday over the “necessary” but “unrealistic” rebasing of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    The rebasing makes the country Africa’s largest economy.

    To Labour, a good GDP without jobs is meaningless. A governor advised President Goodluck Jonathan to face the reality in the land – hunger, unemployment and poverty – instead of being carried away by the rebasing.

    The position of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is a continuation of the assessment of the rebasing announced on Sunday by the government.

    World Bank economists have also cautioned that a large economy does not guarantee foreign investments.

    “What matters is living standards for everyone and the productivity that gurantees those living standards,” World Bank Chief Economist, Africa Region, Mr. Francisco Ferreira, said.

    The government said the long-overdue rebasing – the last one was done in 1990- places Nigeria’s GDP at $509.9b as against South Africa’s $370.3b.

    In a report, the Economist said in spite of Sunday’s announcement of the rebasing, “Nigerians are not richer than they were on Saturday night. The majority of the country’s 170 million people live on less than a dollar a day”.

    In a statement by NLC’s acting President Promise Adewusi titled “Good GDP without sustainable and viable jobs: A time bomb”, the labour said the GDP will only make meaning to the labour family if it translates into improved living conditions for the ordinary Nigerian, which is not the case at the moment.

    Adewusi said the living conditions in the past couple of years have been progressively nosediving and pathetic.

    Deriding the data, the congress said: “Nigeria being the biggest economy in Africa ought to make no news if vital national statistics, such as population, natural resources etc, were to form the requisite assumptions for assessment.”

    The congress added that economic growth without jobs and food on the table, meant nothing in reality.

    “Unemployment figures are frightening. We have found it necessary to warn time without number that the army of the unemployed youths constitutes a veritable army of the disparate, the desperate and the angry, and that government should urgently address the problem.

    “So far, nothing has illustrated this fear better than the recent Immigration recruitment tragedy. We do not need any economist or diviner to tell us that life has improved, because it has not.”

    A GDP, said Adewusi, could not be said to have significantly improved if our industries are virtually shut and the operating environment increasingly hostile. Government should worry that the performance index of industries dropped from 46.08 per cent to 25.81 per cent while service industry more than doubled to 50 per cent from 23.03 per cent. “

    The NLC submitted that this represents a significant change in the economy, a negative change that points to consumption to the exclusion of production.

    The NLC said Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, for good measure, added: “We did not set out to become the biggest economy in Africa. We set out to measure how much the economy has changed. And that is the outcome. Becoming the largest economy on the continent is a positive development, but that is not the destination …”.

    “As cheering as this news may be, however, we at the Nigeria Labour Congress are not completely swayed by the latest GDP figure, nationalist as it seems.”

    The statement added: “As we commend the government for achieving the feat of economic rebasing, we urge it to ensure this figure translates into improved living conditions, jobs, revival of industries and improvement of internal and national security. For those will be the measurable indices and indicators of an enlarging and progressive economy.”

    Kano State Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, also yesterday, dismissed the GDP rebasing as a mere fiction, which does not reflect the true state of the economy.

    Kwankwaso, who urged President Goodluck Jonathan not to be carried away by “the fiction”, counselled him to be more realistic by fighting the serious decay in the economy, which he said is threatening the foundation of the existence of Nigeria’s development.

    Kwankwaso, who spoke in Kano when the African Democratic Congress (ADC) visited him at the Government House, insisted that any practical economist would understand that what the government is claiming does not reflect what is on ground as hunger, starvation, diseases and insecurity are threatening the country.

    Kwankwaso said the so-called Railway development undertaken by the Federal Government, ended up in flooding the country with 1902 category trains, which he said are so dirty and stinking. His view is that what the country needs is real economic development and not paper-based development.

    “President Goodluck Jonathan should be more practical in governance and desist from fiction and unrealistic theories that have nothing to do with what is on ground,” he said, adding that Nigeria is in dire need of good governance that would salvage it from the threat of insurgents.

    Kwankwaso noted that except the growth in Nigeria’s economy which they are claiming must have fallen in the hands of some selected kinsmen and politicians from the South and North, who reside in Abuja, but to talk to ordinary Nigerians that the country’ s economy has grown tremendously will be “laughable”.

    But the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Mr. Kabir Mohammed, said the figures have moved Nigeria to its right position.

    Speaking with State House correspondents after leading some members on a visit to the President, Mohammed said it was the right time for investors to come in.

    “It is an opportunity for Nigeria to come up to date and take her rightful place among the comity of nations. Using these bases, you can see that we have moved into our proper position.

    “We have incorporated structures hitherto not considered. This is an opportunity for people who want to invest in the country to make the right decision and come in,” he said.

    On classification of Nigeria as one of the countries with extreme poverty, he said: “It does not change our figures at all. It does not change our figures.

    “The fact is that two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor are concentrated in just five countries: India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

    Mohammed said he would continue to uphold the ethics of the accounting and ensure that any corrupt accountant is brought to book.

    “As the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN, let me put it to you, if you have any ICAN member involved in corrupt practices, please bring him or her forward. We have our disciplinary procedures. We shall handle the case appropriately.”

    On the reasons for the visit, Mohammed said: “I led members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN, to pay a courtesy call on Mr. president to congratulate him on the wedding of his daughter this weekend and the rebasing of the GDP as well as discuss issues of national importance.”

    Also speaking on alleged corruption by accountants, Minister of Trade and Investment Olusegun Aganga said: “Accounting anywhere in the world is a noble profession and that is why not every body is chartered to practise. It is the only profession where you study Economics, Law, taxation and everything, to do with business.”

     

    How Nigeria’s economy grew by 89 per cent overnight

    ON Saturday, April 5th, South Africa was Africa’s largest economy. The IMF put its GDP at $354 billion last year, well ahead of its closest rival for the crown, Nigeria. By Sunday afternoon that had changed. Nigeria’s statistician-general announced that his country’s GDP for 2013 had been revised from 42.4 trillion naira to 80.2 trillion naira ($509 billion). The estimated income of the average Nigerian went from less than $1,500 a year to $2,688 in a trice. How can an economy grow by almost 90% overnight?

    Nigeria has a deserved reputation for corruption, so a sceptic might think the doubling of its economy a result of fiddling the numbers. In fact it is the old numbers that are dodgy. An economy’s real growth rate is typically measured by reference to prices in a base year. In Nigeria the reference year for the old estimate of GDP was 1990. The IMF recommends that base years be updated at least every five years. Nigeria left it far too long; as a result, its old GDP figures were hopelessly inaccurate.

    The new figures use 2010 as the base year. Why was the upgrade so big? To come up with an estimate of GDP, statisticians need to add together estimates of output from a sample of businesses in every part of the economy, from farming to service industries. The weight they give to each sector depends on its importance to the economy in the base year. A snapshot of Nigeria’s economy in 1990 gave little or no weight to fast-growing parts of the economy such as mobile telephony or the movie industry. At the time the state-owned telephone company had a few hundred thousand customers. Today the country has 120m mobile-phone subscriptions. On the old 1990 figures, the telecoms sector was less than 1% of GDP; it is now almost 9% of GDP. Motion pictures had not shown up at all in the old figures, but the industry’s size is now put at 1.4% of GDP. Nigeria’s number-crunchers have improved the gathering of statistics in other ways. The old GDP figures were based on an estimate of output. The new figures are cross-checked against separate surveys of spending and income. The sample on which the data are based has increased from around 85,000 establishments to 850,000. Only businesses with a fixed location are included: the traders who weave precariously between the traffic are not captured. Even so, many small businesses are now part of the GDP picture.

    Of course, Nigerians are no richer than they were on Saturday night. The majority of the country’s 170m people live on less than a dollar a day. What the revised GDP figures show is that its economy is far more than just an oil enclave, exporting crude to pay for imported goods from richer countries. The oil industry’s share of GDP is now put at just 14%, compared with 33% according to the old figures. Manufacturing is much larger than previously thought. Services are booming. It is still a tough place in which to do business. But any company or investor who wants exposure to Africa’s fast-growing markets cannot afford to pass the continent’s largest economy by.

     

  • Death; NLC Housing; UK harmattan; Delegates local travel; State vs federal party

    Death; NLC Housing; UK harmattan; Delegates local travel; State vs federal party

    Too many deaths and kidnapping, more than 80 this week: ethnic, mindless violence, road and boat accidents, robbery, Fulani cattle related, for body parts!

    In response to ‘Nigeria needs 17million homes’, the NLC/TUC building project in Abuja is fantastic and should be replicated. Lagos is also working in this direction if the federal government will hands-off interfering. Too many associations waste money on expensive AGMs, dinners and five star hotels mimicking wasteful National Assembly (NASS) politicians. All states and associations should build as well, because the federal government may never build enough housing quickly enough!

    We have had zero allocation of power for one month+ but Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and states joyfully tax and levy citizens and business while banks charge 25% for loans. But no rebate for patrol purchases during no power! Maximum suffering and no smiling on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway under construction companies not interested in adequate two lane alternative routing for impatient drivers too willing to ‘face me-I face you’ at a moment’s inconvenience. Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) is too busy gathering N10-16billion in number plate money, particulars check and TV appearances for simple traffic control. And now there is hamattan in London caused by local smog and dust from the Sahara. Wow!

    As part of ‘The National Learning And Healing Process’, National Conference Nigerians can learn to bridge ethnic and religious differences by travelling locally. Young delegates from the North should visit the South including gas flares at night and oil spill dead farms and fishing villages of the Niger Delta, erosion in the East and the Lagos-Ibadan and East-West roads. All South delegates should visit the North including the huge farms, a night on the caked dry shore of Lake Chad, the borders of the Sahel to witness the desertification and decay in family life. Mingle with both herdsmen and farmers! Such a trip meeting locals, not Emirs and chiefs, will improve inter-ethnic, religious and mutual respect.

    The Non Sovereign National Conference (NSNC) must counter negative development strategies of federal ministry officials and ministers occurring because the central federal party is not the state party. Federal employees are sometimes teleguided against the state’s progress instead of creating symbiosis for development creating abandoned federal projects and neglect. The federal government is not supposed to be a party government for the benefit of only ruling party states. Federal punishment for states having a different party has been around forever. President Shagari promised the Third Mainland Bridge to Lagos living Nigerians, only if he was re-elected. PDP Obasanjo depriving AC Lagos of N10b. A presidential legacy president should develop all citizens. Look at the East-West Road, Second Niger Bridge and the Lagos-Ibadan and Ore-Benin roads problems.  Indigenes of states sit at ministerial meetings where their state is brought up for ‘dirty tactics’. Did someone actually say ‘Hey guys, how can we destabilise Lagos State? Any ideas, you Lagosians?’or maybe ‘I have an idea to destabilise my State Lagos’. And did someone “phone a friend” in Lagos and reply ‘Let us seize some land and tie them up in court so they cannot build those 1000+ flats. Let’s stop that Lekki bridge, Ha ha!’ Would a united northerner do that? Using Federal soldiers in your own state in a civilian era speaks of desperation, poor democratic credentials and zero respect for the rule of law. Are federal Lagosians no longer Lagosians when even the NSNC is wrestling to decentralise power, no matter what party is federal -North, South, Muslim, Christian? Look at the Rivers State imbroglio. Federal ministers should not be at war with the ‘other party’ state party officials. Admit good done by opponents and suggest you will do better. Do not rubbish progress. The people will not take bribes instead of services for ever.

    Nigeria and its states, even Lagos State with all its Fashola progress and struggle to be glamorous, are far behind their expected position in 2014. Lagos State is larger than 50 countries in population and income and should be allowed to act like a country. So why should a Lagosian in politics get to the NASS or Federal Executive Council (FEC), using his birth certificate as a Lagosian, and conspire to retard Lagos? Is it just for cheap federal political points in the political game? That is how the some SDP states foolishly forced good NRC Shagari federal housing schemes to be built in the inaccessible bush. The political game is killing and depriving people of housing, food, power, water, education, health, jobs, railways and roads. Do those in the United North countenance such self-destruction? No. Only the South destroys its home states. Yet it is that state wherein their own relations suffer power failures. It is not just Lagos. Ekiti and Osun are hotting up, murderously. How many lives will be lost for political power, this 2014-15?

    No one should single out his state for devilish destruction. We Lagos State citizens call on all Lagosians in federal power not to execute- with or without soldiers- negative plans. This ‘State Pledge’ is common to other states. No official in the federal government, originating from Kano, Plateau etc would ever do anything against their state. Of course they could refuse to educate or provide health and infrastructure for citizens but they would not block funds or progress getting to the state. State development must not be sacrificed by federally based state citizens because of party affiliations.

  • Good GDP without jobs is meaningless, says NLC

    Good GDP without jobs is meaningless, says NLC

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday condemned the claim that the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) makes its economy the largest in Africa.

    The nation’s umbrella union body said such assertion was meaningless since it was without sustainable and viable jobs.

    In a statement by its Acting President, Comrade Promise Adewusi, titled: Good GDP Without Sustainable and Viable Jobs: A Time Bomb, the NLC noted that the new GDP would only make meaning to the labour family if it translates into improved living conditions for the ordinary Nigerian.

    But it said this has not been the case.

    The umbrella union said the living conditions in the past couple of years have been progressively nose-diving and pathetic.

    Picking holes in the data, the NLC said: “Nigeria, being the biggest economy in Africa, ought to make no news, if vital national statistics, such as population, natural resources, among others, were to form the requisite assumptions for assessment.”

    The congress maintained that economic growth without jobs and food on the table was nothing in realty.

    It stressed that the nation’s “unemployment figures are frightening”.

    NLC added: “We have found it necessary to warn, time without number, that the army of the unemployed youths constitutes a veritable army of the desperate and the angry and that government should urgently address the problem.

    “So far, nothing has illustrated this fear better than the recent Immigration recruitment tragedy. We, therefore, do not need any economist or diviner to tell us that life has improved, because it has not.”

    A GDP, the NLC said, could not be said to have significantly improved when the nation’s industries were shut and the operating environment increasingly hostile. The government should worry that the performance index of industries dropped from 46.08 per cent to 25.81 per cent while the service industry more than doubled to 50 per cent from 23.03 per cent.”

    The union submitted that there was a significant change in the economy, a negative change that pointed at consumption to the exclusion of production.

    The statement recalled that the Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, recently told the nation that the outcome of a rebasing exercise conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics, in conjunction with other agencies, placed Nigeria’s GDP in 2013 at 89.22, making it the largest in Africa.

    The position was previously occupied by South Africa.

    Quoting the minister, the union added: “We did not set out to become the biggest economy in Africa. We set out to measure how much the economy has changed. And that is the outcome. Becoming the largest economy on the continent is a positive development, but that is not the destination…”

    The congress stressed that the National Planning Commission Minister, Mr Bashir Yuguda, had vouched for the credibility of the exercise, saying it was “rigorously and professionally” executed.

    But the NLC said: “As cheering as this news may be however, we at the Nigeria Labour Congress are not completely swayed by the latest GDP figure, nationalist as it seems.”

    The statement added: “As we commend the government for achieving the feat of economic rebasing, we urge it to ensure this figure translates into improved living conditions, jobs, revival of industries and improvement in internal and national security. For these will be the measurable indices and indicators of an enlarging and progressive economy.”

     

     

  • NLC : Good GDP without jobs is meaningless

    The Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC) has condemned the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which makes Nigeria’s economy the largest in African.

    The union said the GDP is meaningless since it is without sustainable and viable jobs.

    NLC Acting President, Comrade Promise Adewusi in a statement titled “Good GDP without sustainable and viable jobs: A time bomb,”
    noted that the new GDP will only make meaning to the labour family if it translates into improved living conditions for the ordinary Nigerian which is not the case at the moment.

    Adewusi pointed out that the living conditions in the past couple of years have been progressively nosediving and pathetic.

    Deriding the data, the congress said  “Nigeria being the biggest economy in Africa ought to make no news if vital national statistics such as population, natural resources etc were to form the requisite assumptions for assessment.”

    The congress maintained that economic growth without jobs and food on the table, means nothing in realty.

    NLC noted that the “unemployment figures are frightening. We have found it necessary to warn time without number that the army of the unemployed youths constitutes a veritable army of the disparate, the desperate and the angry, and that government should urgently address the problem.
    “So far nothing has illustrated this fear better than the recent Immigration recruitment exercise tragedy. We therefore do not need any Economist or Diviner to tell us that life has improved, because it has not.”
    A GDP, said Adewusi,  could not be said to have significantly improved if our industries are virtually shut and operating environment increasingly hostile. Government according to him, should worry that the performance index of industries dropped from 46.08% to 25.81% while service industry more than doubled to 50 % from 23.03%. “

  • How ASUU joined the NLC: a footnote to an underground and unwritten history

    How ASUU joined the NLC: a footnote to an underground and unwritten history

    When in 2007 Patrick F. Wilmot published his explosive book, Nigeria: the Nightmare Scenario, I was startled beyond all measure when I came across his bald and bold claim in the book that it was he, Wilmot, who was responsible for the historic merger of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) with the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). As a radical, Pan Africanist senior lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) for many years, the Jamaican-born Wilmot who was married to a Nigerian had been a member of the ABU branch of ASUU. I was the National President of ASUU for part of the period when Dr. Wilmot was at ABU and we did meet a few times during my innumerable visits to Zaria. But even though he was known as one of the ‘campus radicals’ of ABU, in my perception of what was happening at the time, Wilmot was not particularly active in ASUU-ABU. Thus, I was startled when I read the claim in his 2007 book that he had been the man responsible for ASUU joining the NLC by suggesting the move to the late Mahmud Modibbo Tukur who had succeeded me as ASUU National President. Wilmot’s claim is completely false and I shall have more clarifications to make on it later in this piece when I write about Tukur’s reluctance or reservations about taking ASUU into the NLC.

    The matter of who was responsible for ASUU joining the NLC in 1983 or 1984 (I don’t have my notes and papers with me in Cambridge, Massachusetts to verify the exact date) came up again last year when my friend and fellow writer, Odia Ofeimun, in his moving and eloquent tribute to Festus Iyayi claimed that it was Iyayi who made the historic move when he was President of ASUU. This also is not true and I called Ofeimun both to congratulate him on the brilliance and eloquence of his eulogy to Iyayi and to correct his mistaken claim that Festus had been the man who took ASUU into the NLC. Ofeimun thanked me for the correction and said that he wished that I had seen the draft of his eulogy before it was delivered so that the error could have been averted.

    There was another case of inaccurate attribution of responsibility for the ASUU-NLC merger that was both far more complicated than these other cases of Wilmot and Ofeimun and throws considerable light on the whole matter and this had to do with Dr. Segun Osoba, formerly of the University of Ife, a great historian and a pillar of strength, courage and consistency in the radical movement at OAU Ife in particular and Nigerian universities in general. In a speech that he delivered to a national conference of ASUU after the death of Mahmud Tukur, Osoba asserted that Tukur himself had been the person who took ASUU into the NLC.

    When I read the speech I smiled ruefully at the unintended ironies in Dr. Osoba’s claim. This is because while Osoba was factually correct in stating that it was during the presidency of Tukur that ASUU joined the NLC, what he did not know, or perhaps what he had forgotten is that fact that Tukur was actually not keen on the move and it took a lot of persuasion for him to agree to the NLC-ASUU merger. Moreover, Tukur’s reluctance or lack of enthusiasm was based on solid theoretical and ideological grounds that are worth returning to, that are indeed the basis of my going back to the matter nearly three decades later. So to start with, what was the historic significance of the ASUU-NLC merger and what is its enduring legacy decades after Babangida took ASUU out of the NLC?

    At the present time when the ties and contacts between ASUU and NLC are so intimate and regular and a good umber of Nigerian university lecturers have a keen and supportive in interest in the NLC and the lot of workers, it is perhaps difficult to imagine the vast distance that existed between Nigerian workers and Nigerian academics in the 60s and 70s before ASUU joined the NLC. The distance was so great the only a few radical academics whose number could be counted in single digits had anything to do with the trade unions. Which is why academics like Ola Oni of Ibadan, Eskor Toyo of Calabar and Ikenna Nzimiro of Nsukka stood out among their colleagues as the friends of labour in our universities at the time. Indeed, they not only stood out, they were regarded on the campuses as oddities, “communists” who were deluded in their association with workers and the trade unions. I can add my own personal experience to this observation because when, as a young lecturer, I began to associate closely and regularly with trade unionists, many of my closest friends and associates in the community of radical writers and critics looked at my trade union comrades with suspicion if not indeed with disdain!

    On a much larger historical and global terrain, this was in fact something endemic to virtually all the capitalist societies of the world, this separation of workers from academics, a separation in effect of manual labour from intellectual labour. This fear had and still has a justifiable reality in the fact that an alliance of workers and intellectuals, of workers in the factories and workers in the elite institutions of education in any country in the world often shakes conservative and oppressive capitalist societies to their foundations. This was the larger historical, ideological and political background to the ASUU-NLC merger.

    Against the background of this larger historical and global context, the claim that any one person has sole responsibility for, or was the single moving force in the ASUU-NLC alliance is a fatuous and misleading claim. For my generation of so-called ‘campus radicals” we drew inspiration from and followed the examples of people like Ola Oni, Eskor Toyo and Nzimiro. Speaking for myself, long before I became ASUU President, I had been attending meetings of the NLC as an unofficial observer at the then headquarters of the organization at Ojuelegba in Lagos. And I was reporting my observations and experiences at these meetings to the radical groups to which I belonged at the time principally the Socialist Collective at Ife and the Anti-Poverty Movement of Nigeria (APMON) which had branches all over the country. And when I became ASUU President, with the permission and authority of the National Executive Council of the Union, I applied for and got official observer status at the meetings of the NLC and became quite familiar and intimate with leaders of the trade union movement in our country like “Labour Leader No 1” Pa Imoudou, Hassan Sumonu, S.O.Z. Ejiofor, M.J. Sule and Adams Oshiomhole, the current governor of Edo State who was then a middle-level leader in the trade union movement.

    Again, I must emphasize the fact that only with temporal hindsight can we see now as logical and inevitable what at the time was a very steep and arduous mountain to climb. As ASUU President, it had been relatively easy for me to get official observer status at NLC meetings because we did not have to take the matter to the entire Union and its branches for approval; all I had to do was get the approval of the National Executive Council and this wasn’t difficult. All along, the ultimate objective was that we had to take the whole Union, ASUU, into the NLC. By “we” here I am referring to radicals and progressives at many of the branches of ASUU across the country. “We” were influential but small in numbers; moreover, the majority of the membership of ASUU always watched our moves and tactics with keen, vigilant interest if not with suspicion.

    When Mahmud succeeded me as ASUU President “we” decided that the time had come to make the move. This was because Mahmud was not as strongly “suspected” as a “friend of labour” by the generality of ASUU members as I was. Moreover, it was well known that he was not particularly close to the trade union movement. For this reason, as the Immediate Past President (IPP) with a lot of clout in the Union, I was delegated by the radical left in all the ASUU branches to “work” on Mahmud to make him go along with the objective of taking the whole Union, ASUU into the NLC.

    At this point, I must now take up my earlier observation in this piece that Mahmud had important theoretical and ideological reservations about taking our Union into the NLC. The contents of his reservations and objections can be briefly summarized. First, Mahmud thought that both in practice and ideology, the leadership of the labour movement in Nigeria was radical and progressive in name only; he thought their bark was much bigger than their bite. Secondly, he thought that at key moments in the history of the labour movement in Nigeria, this leadership of the trade union movement had sold out to employers and the government. Finally and most important of all, Mahmud thought that while in his opinion, farmers and rural communities were the most potentially revolutionary force in Nigeria because they were far more extensively and cynically exploited than workers, labor leaders in Nigeria had never sought and pursued an alliance with farmers and rural communities.

    As indicated in the title of this piece, this essay is merely a footnote to an unwritten history. The whole history will be written some day, hopefully sooner than later in the near future. What remains for me to say in concluding this piece is to report that in my theoretical discussions on the matter with Mahmud, I succeeded in making him pay attention to things that were going on in underground currents among workers, farmers and intellectuals in the country, things indicating that the distances between these groups were narrowing and were being transcended. It was on the strength of this that he agreed to go along with the objective of taking ASUU into the NLC. But even then, he refused to personally represent ASUU in the Central Working Committee (CWC) of the NLC as he should have as the incumbent president of our Union. Rather than take his place in the CWC of the NLC, he delegated that task to me as ASUU’s IPP and for close to three years I attended every meeting of that highest organ of the NLC as ASUU representative.

    ASUU was eventually kicked out of the NLC by Babangida but the links had been irrevocably forged such that the formal, autocratic attempt of the dictator to effectively sunder the links failed woefully. Without being a formal affiliate of the NLC, ASUU remains closely connected with the national labour body. The most important expression of the legacy of that historic alliance is the fact that today and well into the future that lies ahead of us, workers and academics in our country no longer see their destinies as separate and unrelated as they once did in the long years and decades before ASUU went into the NLC. A Luta Continua!

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • ‘Credible polls produce legitimate governments’

    ‘Credible polls produce legitimate governments’

    A Non-Government Organisation (NGO), Democracy Vanguard (DV), has said the legitimacy of governments is based on the credibility of elections.

    At a sensitisation workshop tagged: “One-man/woman-one-vote” and the public presentation of the Voter’s Handbook in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, DV National Coordinator Comrade Adeola Soetan said the process through which political office holders emerge “must be sanctified to endow it with the needful credibility status”.

    At the event were Ekiti State Chairman, Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Ayodeji Aluko; notable theatre practitioner Mr. Bayo Bankole; representative of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Mrs. Maureen Arinze; DV National Publicity Secretary Sina Odugbemi; State Chair, Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Bunmi Ajimoko and former National President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Olusegun Mayegun.

    Speaking on “The diminished interest of the electorate in the exercise of voting”, Soetan said: “The only legitimate process for putting genuine representatives of the people in government is the election.

    “The electoral process, its freeness and fairness, is what gives government legitimacy and guarantees genuine representative democracy. Consequently, free, fair and credible election devoid of fraud, manipulation, violence and rigging is a condition precedent to genuine democracy and participatory government.

    “Voters should assert themselves with credible deployment of the power of their thumbs, as only this can remove unscrupulous politicians from the political space.

    He said DV is a non-partisan institution, which owes “allegiance to the electorate”.

    DV State Coordinator Miss Yetunde Fagbemigun said elections have continued to “fail” the people because the electorate have continuously shown a disappointing level of apathy and misplaced concern during voting, adding: “This is the reason DV has partnered the electorate to better their performance at elections, starting with the coming one.”

    INEC representative Mrs. Arinze said the conduct of politicians towards the 21 June governorship election would determine the credibility of the election.

    Speaking on: “Ekiti Election: Following the Rules of the Game”, Mayegun said: “INEC has been constitutionally empowered to conduct elections in Nigeria, but we have to admit that that (conducting elections) is possible only with the cooperation of all stakeholders, who include teachers, students, bankers, lawyers, traders, all segments and sections of the society.”

    Mayegun said electoral reform should include poverty alleviation, adding: “We cannot be speaking about reforming the electoral process if and when a large percentage of the people are unemployed.”

  • NLC backs Reps on probe of Petroleum Minister

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has backed the move by some members of the House of Representatives to investigate the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Madueke’s expenditures on hired private jets.

    In a statement titled “Create Jobs; Stop the Private Jets Jamboree NOW!,” issued on Sunday,  President, Abdulwahed Omar, urged that lawmakers to probe the ostentatious spendings of the state governors and other public office holders in the country.
    “We support the move by the National Assembly to probe Mrs. Allison-Madueke. The probe should equally be extended to the Governors and other public office holders involved in this national shame, ” Omar said.
    According to him, the NLC is alarmed at the reported level of waste by public office holders in Nigeria, particularly high profile public officers such as State Governors, Ministers and even their aides in the use of hired private jets.
    The NLC boss added that the allegation that Madueke spent the sum of N3.120 billion in two years maintaining a private jet which will be probed by the House of Representatives, is a welcome development.
    Omar said that the probe is timely as it is coming at a time that other public office holders, including state governors had also been alleged to have squandered as much as N130 million monthly to hire and maintain private jets.
    He expressed concern that in a country in urgent need of development infrastructure that are capable of lifting up our local industries, create real employment, deliver quality social services; it is not only sad that our public officers are shamelessly enmeshed in financial recklessness, it is equally condemnable that so much public funds are being expended on acquisition and hiring of private jets even to destinations conveniently plied by commercial airlines.
    ” It is abhorring that state governors who have always complained of inability to pay the minimum wage to public servants in their states under the pretense of paucity of funds could embark on such wastage at the expense of the sweat and sacrifice of workers and to the detriment of the development of their states.
    ” The governors, in particular, have collectively made attempts to sponsor bills at the National Assembly to undermine workers interests, particularly on the minimum wage. Each time issues of wages come up, they are the first violators, insisting often times that their states lack the resources to accommodate increase in wages while their tastes and thirsts for high profile life styles goes on unabated.
    The NLC noted that : “It is nauseating that the Minister of Petroleum Resources, whose ministry supervises the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, which has become the most prominent in financial scandals involving public institutions in Nigeria, will chose to be flying in hired private jets while the petroleum industry is sliding in stinking rots.”
    “Refineries and other infrastructures under her supervision have totally collapsed; management of resources meant to uplift the industry has become subjects and sources of several scandals in recent times.
    “While the alleged disappearance of over $20billion from the accounts of the NNPC is still a subject of probes by both arms of the National Assembly, the public is still groaning under shortages or complete absence of petroleum products at pump stations.
    “This same minister was recently quoted as advocating further excruciating hardships for Nigerians through complete removal of petroleum subsidy, including kerosene which the poor and the working class depend on.
    “Indeed, what is further required is a holistic, transparent and result-driven probe of the entire financial recklessness of public resources on adventures that contribute nothing to the development of our country.
    “The lifestyles and greedy thirsts of our public officers are completely deceptive and inconsistent with our collective reality as a country with a non performing economy, high unemployment rate, mass poverty and near total infrastructural collapse, ” Omar stated.

     

  • Minister faces sack over 19 job seekers’ death

    Minister faces sack over 19 job seekers’ death

    Jonathan lashes Moro, NIS chief

    Protests in Abuja, Kaduna

    Interior Minister Abba Moro’s job was hanging in the balance yesterday after a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Besides, there were protests in Abuja and Kaduna over the death last weekend of no fewer than 19 job seekers at Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment centres.

    Jonathan summoned Moro and NIS Comptroller General Mr David Parradang to the Villa to explain what went wrong.

    The presidential action followed the national outcry that greeted the deaths in Abuja, Minna, Port Harcourt and Benin centres of 19 applicants, including expectant women.

    Eminent Nigerians have called for Moro’s resignation or his sack by the President over the poor handling of what should be a routine event.

    Moro insisted yesterday that he would not resign. He blamed the victims for the stampede that led to their deaths, saying they failed to obey instructions. The minister added that some unauthorised people came to the centres to cause problems. He promised to set up a probe.

    The organisation of the recruitment has been generally adjudged to be shoddy, with 520,000 job seekers chasing 4, 556 openings. There was stampede at the stadia used for the recruitment.

    In Kaduna, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) led a protest to the NIS.

    In Abuja, a civil society organisation spearheaded a march on the office of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

    The NLC, in a statement by its President AbdulWaheed Omar, called for a probe of the deaths.

    Moro and Parradang were at the Presidential Villa for over two hours. They were led to the President’s office by the Chief of Staff, Gen. Jones Arogbofa.

    Jonathan described the “incident” as sad.

    Speaking at the inauguration of the National Conference in Abuja, he said: “As we were preparing for this inauguration, a very sad incident happened on Saturday.”

    He called for a minute silence “for the young lads who died on Saturday”.

    It was learnt that Jonathan tongue lashed the two officials for about 20 minutes. They were reportedly dumbfounded throughout the session.

    They could not give cogent reasons for the deaths.

    The President was reported to have told them: “I am highly disappointed with your performance. I cannot tolerate this.”

    It was learnt that the President’s mood suggested that the time was up for the two officials to resign – if they could read his countenance.

    A highly-placed source said: “We have never seen the President in such a foul mood at the Villa. The case was compounded by the fact that the Minister and the Immigration chief could not give cogent reasons.

    “They were just blabbing.

    “At the end of the 20-minute session, the Minister and Parradang wobbled out of the President’s office, uncertain of their jobs.”

    Another source in the Presidency said: “The President’s reaction suggested that they cannot go scot free at all. If they do not quit, he might show them the way out of government.

    “What the President did was to tongue lash them, leave them to ponder and take the path of honour by quitting; otherwise they will be removed without dignity.”

    It was gathered that Moro and Parradang were still trying to lobby some governors and highly-placed Nigerians to keep their jobs

    Security agencies have started probing the involvement of a company, Drexel Nig. limited, in the recruitment tragedy.

    A top official of one of the security agencies said: “From our preliminary findings, over N7billion was collected from 734,000 candidates who applied for about 4,556 vacancies.

    “We are investigating how the company was engaged, the terms and the service rendered to the NIS.”

    The peaceful protest at the Kaduna State command of the NIS was led by NLC Vice-President Isa Aremu. The protesters arrived at the NIS office early in the morning and blocked its entrance. They prevented the staff from entering their offices.

    The union members carried placards that contained various inscriptions and a letter of protest which they wanted to deliver to the state controller.

    However, the officers on duty barred the workers from the premises, telling them that the controller was not in the office.

    Aremu demanded compensation for the families of the 19 victims.

    He urged Jonathan to demonstrate that no life of an applicant would further be wasted at any recruitment centre.

    He said: “The President should take action so as to prevent shameless exhibition of incompetence and non-service delivery by some of his ministers.”

    The Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER), led the Abuja protest.

    The Executive Director of CASER, Mr Frank Tietie, led some members to the NHRC headquarters.

    Tietie urged the authorities to probe the incident and bring those found wanting to book.

    He said lack of crowd control measures and medical emergency personnel at the centres across the country was a violation of the applicants’ rights to life and dignity.

    Tietie said preventable deaths, occasioned by negligence and inaction, were rife in the country.

    He called for urgent action to prevent a recurrence.

    The CASER executive director submitted a petition addressed to the UN Human Rights Commission to the Executive Secretary of NHRC, Prof. Ben Angwe, for onward transmission.

    Angwe described the incident as “sad, not only to the commission but also the Federal Government and country at large”.

    The commission is investigating into incident.

    Angwe expressed regret that the exercise, which was meant to provide jobs for Nigerians and reduce unemployment, resulted in avoidable deaths.

    He said that the incident had kick-started a new beginning in the campaign for the protection of the fundamental human rights of Nigerians.

    He assured the group of NHRC’s commitment to assisting in identifying the victims and ensuring they were compensated by the government.

    The NHRC executive secretary praised CASER for its action, saying it indicated that groups were heeding the commission’s call for sensitisation of Nigerians to their human rights.

    The NLC said the congress was saddened and shocked to learn of the avoidable deaths.

    Said Omar: “It is grossly unfair for the Immigration Service to have invited thousands of our youths to physically present themselves to compete to fill a miserly 4000 vacancies.

    “Nothing but crass opportunism can explain this heartless scam.

    “A more rational and discerning recruitment process could easily have reduced the number by insisting on raising minimum standards.

    “The explanation by the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, that 520,000 applicants were invited for 4,556 spaces and that the applicants died in a stampede due to impatient and non-adherence to laid down orderly procedure, is rather weak and untenable.’’

    Omar noted that to have invited so many applicants for such few spaces was unacceptable.

    He called on the Federal Government to investigate the NIS, query the methods it adopted and the discretion it exercised in conducting the programme.

    “It is also important to remind government of the danger that unemployment, particularly unemployment of qualified youths, represents.

    “We, therefore, call on the government to tackle unemployment with increased commitment, and appropriately sanction those who have had a hand in causing these scandalous deaths.”

    The Trade Union Congress (TUC) described the stampede as a national disaster. It called for an investigation.

     

  • APC accuses Fed Govt of secret moves to hike fuel price

    APC accuses Fed Govt of secret moves to hike fuel price

    •Fed Govt insincere with fuel scarcity, says NUPENG

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led Federal Government of acting out a clandestine script to increase fuel prices.

    It said the nation-wide fuel scarcity may have been induced to make higher fuel prices a fait accompli for Nigerians.

    In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the fact that the scarcity has persisted despite the claims and counter-claims by the government and the oil markers, and the measures purportedly taken by the government to ameliorate the situation, is the clearest indication of official deception.

    “The more fuel trucks the government claims to have sent to major cities to ease the scarcity, the more difficult it is for Nigerians to obtain the product. This is an old trick and Nigerians should not be hoodwinked into believing there will be no increase in fuel prices.

    The only deterrent is to let the government know Nigerians will resist any price hike.

    “The truth is that with the elections approaching, the PDP-led Federal Government is desperately seeking all possible avenues to raise funds for its usual electoral shenanigans, and increasing fuel prices has always been an attractive option to the government, not minding what the impact will be on the same people it has impoverished since 1999,’’ it said.

    APC said the lingering scarcity has already forced many Nigerians to pay as much as 120 Naira per litre of fuel, which is exactly as the FG wants it to be.

    “The next refrain from the government will be that only higher prices will guarantee the availability of the product, and that many marketers are unwilling to import the product because of low profit margin. We urge Nigerians not to swallow this bait,’’ the party said.

    It commended the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) for its timely warning against any plan to hike fuel prices, saying the Jonathan Administration’s assurances that fuel prices would not be increased are not worth anything because the government is credibility-deficient.

    “The big deception of 2012, when the government slammed a massive price hike on Nigerians on New Year’s day despite assurances to the contrary, is still too fresh in the memories of Nigerians. The same people who inflicted that pain on Nigerians are still in charge, so no one should trust them,” APC warned.

    The Deputy National Chairman of the Petrol Tankers Drivers (PTD) Branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), NNPC, Apata, Ibadan, Comrade Salimon Oladiti, has accused the Federal Government of insincerity on the reason for the fuel scarcity.

    Oladiti said it was a method by the government to increase fuel pump prices.

    The NUPENG spoke yesterday at the Oyo State House of Assembly complex, Secretariat, Ibadan.

    “We in the Labour have been trying our possible best to mount pressure on the Federal Government. Now if you want to buy petrol in Lagos now from private depot, it is N100, whereas they are just sending little quantity to NNPC depot. That is why we are experiencing all this things. What the Minister of Petroleum said about marketers diverting of fuel was a total lie.

    ”How many times will they continue to say that we are the cause of this crisis? When the product is available, did you experience or hear from them that somebody is diverting the fuel, or that somebody is going on leave and all that? All her excuses are nonsense. If someone is not productive, then the President of the day should replace him with somebody that is ready to do the job, rather than playing politics with issues every time.”

    He urged all Nigerians to mount pressure on the Federal Government to give a reasonable explanation on the fuel scarcity.

  • NLC to govt: we’ll resist fuel price hike

    NLC to govt: we’ll resist fuel price hike

    Labour warned yesterday against further “punishment” of Nigerians by the Federal Government, with the lingering petrol scarcity nationwide.

    Many filling stations in Lagos did not have petrol and the scarcity was biting hard in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

    In many other cities, prices went up to as high as N120 per litre. The official price is N97 per litre.

    But the government is insisting that there is enough supply of products and that the scarcity is artificial.

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) warned that if the nationwide scarcity is to pave the way for increase in prices of petroleum products, the labour movement would resist the attempt.

    NLC President Abdulwahed Omar, in a statement, said trading blame between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the oil marketers seems to be a ploy to inflict pains on Nigerians to compel them to accept increase in fuel prices.

    But Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Maduake said at the weekend in Lagos after inspecting some filling stations that the government has no plan to increase fuel price.

    The NLC President said: “Assurances by the NNPC notwithstanding, the tirade and buck passing between the corporation and marketers indicate an attempt to deliberately inflict hardship on Nigerians so as to accept increase in fuel prices. We hope this is not the case, as the Labour Movement will resist any attempt to further impoverish the working people with increase in fuel prices.”

    The statement, which NLC titled: “Stop punishing Nigerians with fuel scarcity”, warned that Nigerians could only hold the Federal Government responsible for the scarcity and not the marketers.

    Omar added: “We didn’t elect marketers to govern us. Government must take full responsibility for the scarcity and take decisive steps to restore normalcy urgently.”

    The NLC recalled since the last few weeks when scarcity of petroleum products at sales stations became noticeable, workers and the Nigerian people have experienced excruciating hardship and trauma with incoherent excuses from marketers and ostensible helplessness from the Federal government as well as relevant agencies responsible to rectify the deplorable situation.

    Omar noted that the scarcity of the product and long hours at fuel stations have clearly slowed down productivity and its attendant effect on service delivery and production within the economy.

    According to the NLC, while importers claim the unnecessary delay in obtaining import approvals from the Federal Government, which enable them import the products early enough to meet up with public demands, is the cause of the scarcity; the NNPC insists the products are available, but the marketers are hoarding products to deliberately increase prices.

    The congress said that the recent announcement by the NNPC that it has supplied 50 million litres of fuel to marketers and intensified its monitoring exercise to check hoarding of the product has not ameliorated, but heightened the suffering of Nigerians as prices have continued to skyrocket with a litre of fuel selling between N500 – N800 in the parallel market.

    The NLC said that it was bad enough that Nigeria was importing products it produces, and scandalous that the government had not fixed the rot in the petroleum industry despite promises publicly made by successive administrations between 1999 and now.

    Omar said: “We believe the government can do better by immediately bringing supplies of these products to its normal status because the economy may be halted soon, should the scarcity continue.”

    The persistent fuel scarcity has taken its toll on the residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as transport fare has increased by between 50 and 100 per cent.

    A correspondent the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who went round some parts of Abuja reports that worst hit are civil servants and traders who waited endlessly at their various bus stops without much hope of getting vehicles.

    Motorists, who managed to get the product after several hours of queuing at fuel stations, transferred the burden on passengers by charging almost double the normal fare.

    Mr Yusuf Yahaya, a civil servant, who lives in Lugbe on Airport Road, said he suffered at the bus stop while coming to work on yesterday morning.

    Yahaya said he spent several hours before getting a vehicle and the driver charged him N150 for a distance that previously went for N100.

    “Can you imagine how long I waited at the bus top this morning without getting any vehicle, but because I have to get to work at all cost, I paid the extra unbudgeted fare.

    “The situation is becoming worrisome and I think the authorities need to rise to the challenge before it is hijacked by the perceived enemies of the nation,” he said.

    Miss Salamatu Biu, another civil servant, said that she had been paying more than the normal fare to get to work since the fuel scarcity started.

    “I used to pay between N300 and N400 to get to the office before, but now there is no day I pay less than N600 per drop from my house to the office, which means I spend N1,200 daily on transportation,” she said.

    Mrs Patience Ojo said the fare from Nyanya to Maraba to the city centre, which used to cost between N100 and N150 had increased to between N200 and N300, depending on the destination.

    She said that the situation was being compounded with the non availability of small buses as the big buses were just doing skeletal services.

    “If you get to the bus stops you will see a confused situation as commuters struggle to catch the few available vehicles.’’

    Ojo said her worry was how to get back home in the evening before she could think of coming to work the next day.

    Mr Oladele Henry, a commercial driver, who explained the reason why he had to charge extra fare, said he spent several hours at filling stations before getting fuel.

    He said that the situation was not improving as the queue kept increasing at filling stations in the city.

    The NNPC said it had increase fuel allocation to the Federal Capital Territory.

    In a statement issued in Abuja, Dr Omar Ibrahim the Acting General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, said the allocation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to Abuja had been increased from 100 trucks to 150 trucks per day.

    abour warned yesterday against further “punishment” of Nigerians by the Federal Government, with the lingering petrol scarcity nationwide.

    Many filling stations in Lagos did not have petrol and the scarcity was biting hard in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

    In many other cities, prices went up to as high as N120 per litre. The official price is N97 per litre.

    But the government is insisting that there is enough supply of products and that the scarcity is artificial.

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) warned that if the nationwide scarcity is to pave the way for increase in prices of petroleum products, the labour movement would resist the attempt.

    NLC President Abdulwahed Omar, in a statement, said trading blame between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the oil marketers seems to be a ploy to inflict pains on Nigerians to compel them to accept increase in fuel prices.

    But Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Maduake said at the weekend in Lagos after inspecting some filling stations that the government has no plan to increase fuel price.

    The NLC President said: “Assurances by the NNPC notwithstanding, the tirade and buck passing between the corporation and marketers indicate an attempt to deliberately inflict hardship on Nigerians so as to accept increase in fuel prices. We hope this is not the case, as the Labour Movement will resist any attempt to further impoverish the working people with increase in fuel prices.”

    The statement, which NLC titled: “Stop punishing Nigerians with fuel scarcity”, warned that Nigerians could only hold the Federal Government responsible for the scarcity and not the marketers.

    Omar added: “We didn’t elect marketers to govern us. Government must take full responsibility for the scarcity and take decisive steps to restore normalcy urgently.”

    The NLC recalled since the last few weeks when scarcity of petroleum products at sales stations became noticeable, workers and the Nigerian people have experienced excruciating hardship and trauma with incoherent excuses from marketers and ostensible helplessness from the Federal government as well as relevant agencies responsible to rectify the deplorable situation.

    Omar noted that the scarcity of the product and long hours at fuel stations have clearly slowed down productivity and its attendant effect on service delivery and production within the economy.

    According to the NLC, while importers claim the unnecessary delay in obtaining import approvals from the Federal Government, which enable them import the products early enough to meet up with public demands, is the cause of the scarcity; the NNPC insists the products are available, but the marketers are hoarding products to deliberately increase prices.

    The congress said that the recent announcement by the NNPC that it has supplied 50 million litres of fuel to marketers and intensified its monitoring exercise to check hoarding of the product has not ameliorated, but heightened the suffering of Nigerians as prices have continued to skyrocket with a litre of fuel selling between N500 – N800 in the parallel market.

    The NLC said that it was bad enough that Nigeria was importing products it produces, and scandalous that the government had not fixed the rot in the petroleum industry despite promises publicly made by successive administrations between 1999 and now.

    Omar said: “We believe the government can do better by immediately bringing supplies of these products to its normal status because the economy may be halted soon, should the scarcity continue.”

    The persistent fuel scarcity has taken its toll on the residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as transport fare has increased by between 50 and 100 per cent.

    A correspondent the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who went round some parts of Abuja reports that worst hit are civil servants and traders who waited endlessly at their various bus stops without much hope of getting vehicles.

    Motorists, who managed to get the product after several hours of queuing at fuel stations, transferred the burden on passengers by charging almost double the normal fare.

    Mr Yusuf Yahaya, a civil servant, who lives in Lugbe on Airport Road, said he suffered at the bus stop while coming to work on yesterday morning.

    Yahaya said he spent several hours before getting a vehicle and the driver charged him N150 for a distance that previously went for N100.

    “Can you imagine how long I waited at the bus top this morning without getting any vehicle, but because I have to get to work at all cost, I paid the extra unbudgeted fare.

    “The situation is becoming worrisome and I think the authorities need to rise to the challenge before it is hijacked by the perceived enemies of the nation,” he said.

    Miss Salamatu Biu, another civil servant, said that she had been paying more than the normal fare to get to work since the fuel scarcity started.

    “I used to pay between N300 and N400 to get to the office before, but now there is no day I pay less than N600 per drop from my house to the office, which means I spend N1,200 daily on transportation,” she said.

    Mrs Patience Ojo said the fare from Nyanya to Maraba to the city centre, which used to cost between N100 and N150 had increased to between N200 and N300, depending on the destination.

     

     

    She said that the situation was being compounded with the non availability of small buses as the big buses were just doing skeletal services.

    “If you get to the bus stops you will see a confused situation as commuters struggle to catch the few available vehicles.’’

    Ojo said her worry was how to get back home in the evening before she could think of coming to work the next day.

    Mr Oladele Henry, a commercial driver, who explained the reason why he had to charge extra fare, said he spent several hours at filling stations before getting fuel.

    He said that the situation was not improving as the queue kept increasing at filling stations in the city.

    The NNPC said it had increase fuel allocation to the Federal Capital Territory.

    In a statement issued in Abuja, Dr Omar Ibrahim the Acting General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, said the allocation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to Abuja had been increased from 100 trucks to 150 trucks per day.