Civil servants to Tinubu: Slash petrol to N500, approve wage award or face action

Federal civil servants under the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council Trade Union Side have issued President Bola Tinubu a September 30 ultimatum to stabilise petrol at N500 per litre, approve an immediate wage award and constitute a new minimum wage negotiation committee ahead of January 2027 — warning that the prevailing economic hardship was generating “palpable tension” among workers nationwide.

In a letter addressed to the President, the JNPSNC said petrol prices of N1,430 per litre and above had deepened the cost-of-living crisis triggered by the removal of fuel subsidy three years ago, making life “increasingly unbearable” for workers.

According to Daily Post, the workers dismissed government palliatives — including bags of rice, Indomie, vegetable oil and garri — as unsustainable, politically skewed interventions.

“It has dawned on Nigerian workers that the provision of palliatives is as good as weaponising Nigerians with poverty because it is a Pyrrhic intervention which is unsustainable, inaccessible to the majority of Nigeria’s population and also limited to political cronies,” the workers said.

They argued that reducing fuel to N500 per litre would produce far-reaching multiplier effects across the economy, providing more meaningful relief than food distribution.