Fuel Price Hike: CNPP Chairman, Balarabe Musa blast FG, NLC; urges mass protest

The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has called on the Nigerian masses and civil society to protest the new petrol price despite an order of Industrial Court stopping planned strike action by the organized labour.

But the group said Nigerians should ignore the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, accusing them, and the government, of insincerity.

“We are taken aback that the federal government could hurriedly obtain a judgment from the Industrial Court, with readiness to enforce same overnight while the government is yet to obey many other court orders against it,” CNPP said in a statement issued on Tuesday, jointly signed by its national Chairman, Balarabe Musa and the Secretary General, Willy Ezugwu.

“For instance, the PRP was deregistered as a political party by the Independent National Electoral commission (INEC) and a court of competent jurisdiction ordered its re-registration but the INEC is yet to obey the order.

“Today, the federal government selects which court judgment to obey and the ones against it are discountenanced.

“We reiterate our call on all well-meaning Nigerians and the civil society to ignore the Labour unions and protest against the unjustifiable pump price increment in their numbers.

“The CNPP suspects that the Industrial Court judgment was obtained by the federal government in connivance with the labour unions to ambush the Nigerian masses and deny them their constitutional rights to hold opinion, freedom of expression and association.

“Recall that the CNPP had earlier warned Nigerian people to ignore the Labour unions because our findings showed that they have been compromised and would eventually betray Nigerians as they did in 2012.

“The order of the Industrial Court stopping the unions’ planned strike puts a question mark on the sincerity of both the labour unions and the feral government.

“But the government and the unions must be made aware that the Nigerian people are unstoppable despite their glaring conspiracy against the wishes of the people,” the statement read.