Nigeria: Fuel Scarcity is Killing the Economy, Labour Laments

The protracted fuel scarcity in the country is pushing Nigeria into zero-productivity and zero growth thereby making the nation to sink deeper into underdevelopment, the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), has warned.

For the organised labour in the nation’s textile industry, Nigeria would not meet the challenges of being one of the 20 leading economies by 2020 when its working people were sleeping in fuel stations and private enterprises grounded because of fuel crisis.
President and Acting General Secretary NUTGTWN, Comrades Reginald Agulanna and Comrade Issa Aremu in a statement, described the on-going fuel scarcity as unacceptable and a pointer to a failing economy.

The statement read in part: “The sharp decline in the performance of textile industry continued in 2006. There is an official admission that while food and agricultural sub-sectors have responded to the presidential revival initiatives, textile industry remained ever depressed and virtually on the verge of extinction. The depression of the sector manifested in continuous factory closures, asset wastage, job-losses and declined union membership. In 2006 alone, over 5000 direct jobs were lost due to factory closures, industrial down sizing and retrenchment. Indirect job-losses are in tens of thousands.

This development has further fueled income poverty, deepened mass poverty, mass destitution and mass desperation in respective textile communities through out the country. Paradoxically, 2006 witnessed some additional bold moves by President Obasanjo Administration to revive the textile industry. The ban on imported textile materials was in place while the Custom Service recorded some remarkable seizures of illegal banned textile imports. The Presidential committee under the chairmanship of FCT minister Mallam Nasir el Rufai openly burnt some of the seized textile items. President Obasanjo launched the N50 billion Cotton rebirth campaign in August 2006 in Kaduna.

AllAfrica