By Toye Olori
LAGOS, Dec 23 1998 (IPS)

The decision by Nigeria’s military government to more than double the price of fuel has enraged the country’s vocal trade unions and business community.

The decision, which was announced on Monday, saw the price of fuel jacked up from 12 U.S cents to 29 cents per litre.

“I had thought that this government is sensitive but I can see that it is insensitive. People who love this country must call for an end to military rule,” says Sode Iji, Executive Secretary of the Food, Beverages and Tobacco Association.

He says only a dictator could contemplate raising the price of fuel by more than 200 percent, given the level of poverty in Nigeria.

Adebayo Kazeem of the Nigeria Labour Congress, umbrella of 26 industrial unions, claims the military government deliberately allowed the rise so as to provoke Nigerians to derail the country’s transition to civilian rule.

Nigeria’s head of state, General Abdulsalaam Abubakar, has pledged to hand power to a civilian government in May 1999, a move which will “end” the role of the military in politics in Nigeria.

The rise in the fuel price has forced transport companies to increase fares by more than 100 percent in most cities in Nigeria. In the commercial capital Lagos, which has been hit by an acute shortage of fuel, queues have kept stretching at the few functioning fuel stations.

A few filling stations visited by IPS in Lagos this week were selling petrol from only one of four pumps, due to the scarcity.

“It is apparent that fuel price increase is not the solution to the problem of fuel scarcity, but making petroleum products available all the year round,” argues Olawale Idowu, a motorist in Lagos.

“Government should rehabilitate the nation’s four refineries to make products available and also protect its citizens from exploitation by companies that have been given licence to import petroleum products,” Idowu says.

Nigeria, which consumes 300,000 barrels of fuel per day, has four refineries with a combined capacity to process 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

One of the refineries in the northern Nigerian town of Kaduna, which is slated to produce 110,000 barrels per day, is expected to be completed by the end of the year to ease scarcity in the north.

Jacob Omoniyi of the National Road Transport Workers Union says instead of approving a price increase, the government should have tackled “the problem of fuel scarcity and ensure adequate supply of petrol at the old price of eleven naira (One US Dollar is equal to about 88 naira) per litre”.

“With this increase, I am sure the transporters and commuters will face a very tough future,” Omoniyi says.

However, some motorists in Lagos say they believe the new fuel price is affordable if the product could be made available for motorists.

“Some of us were buying petrol for as much as 30 naira per litre when the official price was eleven naira and we still found it difficult to find fuel to buy even when we were ready to pay more,” said the motorist who preferred anonymity.

Nigeria, with a population of more than 110 million people, is a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and is its 12th largest producer.

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