Economic Hardships: Tinubu’s CNG Set To Scuttle Mass Strike

President Bola Tinubu may have initiated a strategy of scuttling envisaged strike by the labour unions over ongoing economic hardships in the country.

This is coming in the form of free conversion kits and free installation fee for Compressed Natural Gas, (CNG).

The gadgets are being proposed for all transport owners belonging to the National Union of Road Transport Workers, (NURTW) National Union of Road Transport Owners, (NATO) and Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, (RETEAN).

The transport unions are usually key to the success or otherwise of strike actions as is being envisaged by some Nigerians following the economic hardships in the country.

Earlier today, the labour unions in the country – the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) again met with the president over their N250, 000 minimum wage demand as against N63, 000 being proposed by the government but could not reach an agreement.

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Because of the prevailing economic hardship in the country, the feeling is rife in some quarters for the unions to consider strike again as a way of pressuring the government to accede to its demands.

This though may not be feasible going by the conditions that need to be met for strike to happen

Speaking at the signing of an agreement with five CNG kit conversion companies in Abuja, Portland Gas, NIPCO, ABG Oil and Gas, Fix it 45, and NITT., the Programme Director, Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, PCNI, Engr. Michael Oluwagbemi said the government expects the cost of transportation to drop by about 50 percent over time.

It is expected that transport companies and e-hailing companies would get the conversion kits at 50 percent discount of its cost of between N1.2 and N1.5 million apiece.

“The Conversion Incentive Programme is tackling the barrier to Nigerian commercial transport entities, operators, to convert from PMS to gas. Most of them have said that the cost of conversion is expensive. And so what we are doing here today is basically to respond to that concern. What is the government doing about it? First and foremost, for commercial operators that are unionized, I talk about the members of RETEAN, NATO, NURTW, through their unions, they can benefit from almost 100 percent discount. That is, they will get the kit for free, and installation will also be done for them for free.

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“And this is going to be done through these certified conversion workshops that we are beginning to identify. We’ve identified about 123 of them. Five of them are here with us today that we’re going to be working with here in Abuja. As we expand across the country, we’ll be activating more of them at a time”, he said.

Incentives such as the one under review could be used to break the ranks of a strong labour force, especially where it targets a strategic arm of the workers, like the transport unions.