NURTW, NACTOMORAS urge Buhari to revert to old pump price of N87 per litre

National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and the National Commercial Tricycle and Motorcycle Owners & Riders Association (NACTOMORAS) have urged the Federal Government to revert to the old pump price of N87 per litre of petrol.

They reminded President Muhammadu Buhari that it was the grassroots people that voted him into power and hence he should feel their pains “or another time is coming”.

The associations while making presentations yesterday before the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on the review of the pump price of petrol, headed by Raphael Nnanna Igbokwe, said in spite of the increases in petrol pump price, the country has ended up with “bad roads, power failure, unemployment, poverty, as well as medical care deterioration and high inflation of essential commodities”.

NURTW President Alhaji Najeem Usman Yasin, who was represented by Mercy Ibeh of the union’s legal department, kicked against any planned hike in pump price and said the association rather preferred a downward review of the petrol price.

NACTOMORAS National President Alhaji Muhd Sani Hassan said: “We write to object, reject and disagree with any plan or move to increase the pump price of PMS fuel, without leniency, sympathy or consideration of the already depleted economic realities being experienced in the country.”

The association said hardship was being “meted out to millions of Nigerians, most especially our members, who are the grassroots transporters, with population of over 13,793,150 in the country”.

Hassan said of the fuel increments made by government since 1973, only the one of 1994 benefitted the masses through the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) projects.

“Therefore, if the government wanted to maintain its good name, it should abandon the idea of increase of the price and revert to the old price of N87.00 per litre.”