Nigeria Trade Union demand immediate reduction in fuel price, says workers can no longer afford transport cost

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria has issued a sharp warning to the Federal Government, stating that fuel prices are nearing a breaking point, and workers' salaries are no longer stretching far enough to matter.

Speaking at a State of the Nation press conference in Abuja on Thursday, TUC President Festus Osifo painted a bleak picture of where things stand.

"Today, we are seeing that the cost of petrol is edging towards ₦2,000 per litre depending on the part of the country that you are in. Nigerian workers are already passing through excruciating pain as we speak," he said.

Osifo traced the surge partly to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

With the 2026 Appropriation Act pegging the crude oil benchmark at $64.85 per barrel, and current international crude prices hovering around $100 per barrel due to tensions in the region and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Nigeria is earning an excess of roughly $35 per barrel above its budget projection.

His proposal is to redirect that windfall toward easing the crisis rather than letting workers absorb the cost.

Specifically, Osifo called on the government to channel at least 60 percent of that excess crude revenue into subsidising crude supplied to the Dangote Refinery and other local refineries, a production-side intervention he insists would be harder to abuse than past downstream subsidy arrangements.

"Let government take the excess fund that was never budgeted for, take at least 60 per cent of that excess fund then use it to subsidise the crude being supplied to Dangote Refinery," he said.

The TUC president also linked the fuel crisis to the broader weakness of the naira, arguing that if the exchange rate was held between ₦800 and ₦900 to the dollar, Nigerians would be paying less than ₦1,000 per litre at the pump.

Beyond fuel, Osifo used the occasion to raise the alarm on security.

His remarks came just a day after the United States issued a stark travel advisory on April 8, ordering the evacuation of non-emergency embassy personnel from Abuja and flagging 23 Nigerian states under its highest warning level, "Do Not Travel", citing terrorism, kidnapping, and civil unrest.

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The Federal Government pushed back, insisting that Nigeria's security environment remains stable. Osifo was less charitable.

He condemned the continued killing of citizens across the country as unacceptable and called on the government to equip security agencies with the modern technology needed to confront the threat.

For Nigerian workers already stretched thin, Thursday's press conference was less a policy suggestion and more a statement of how far things have gone.

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