Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has lambasted his fellow governors.
He said; “I am a governor. I am one of you. The least I expect from the Nigeria Governors Forum is unequivocal and unqualified support. I didn’t see that in that statement.”
“I am being very blunt. I could pretend and be political and just smile and say it was alright but it is not. But I am used to fighting my own battles.”
“We will fight this. We are breaking them and they will leave town ashamed. I will not give them one inch because this is not about unionism.”
“If it is about rights of workers, Kaduna is not the only state that has retrenched workers. Kaduna is not a state owing salaries. Kaduna is not a state failing to pay minimum wage. Kaduna is not a state owing years of pension arrears.”
“Why didn’t they go there? Kaduna was targeted for political reasons; and they are being financed by certain political interests.”
“But we will fight them, we will defeat them but as the Governor of Bayelsa said, and since he has brought that subject, I have a responsibility to put it through, unless we collectively address this monster, it will consume all of us.”
“After this, they (NLC) will never come back to Kaduna. They will never come back, you will see. They will go to other states. It is up to the forum to decide on what to do, but we are here, we are ready, we will end this by the grace of God.”
“I would like to inform the forum that one of our colleagues, a state governor actually gave the NLC money to come to Kaduna to do this because people think everything is politics. This is not politics. This is a monster that will consume all of us. It will not consume Kaduna I’m confident of that.”
“That press release with the greatest respect was unhelpful. It was unhelpful. It said nothing. It was trying to play both sides.”
“Between N70bn and N210bn is estimated to be spent every month to keep gasoline price at N162 per litre, this is below the cost price and the remittance to the federation account will shrink to less than N50bn per month or even zero if threats persist.”
“We are already at zero. I understand for tomorrow, so this scenario has occurred.”
“Why are we keeping the price at N162? We are keeping the price because the Federal Government and trade unions met and agreed to the suspension of some industrial action months back.”
“Even though we all supported deregulation of petroleum products prices last year, this agreement was suspended by the Federal Government because of a threat of industrial action by unions. This is the root of the problem and now we are back to losing between N70bn to N210bn per month.”
“The committee recommends PMS pump price increment from the current N162per litre to N408.5 per litre (negotiations with organized labour unions). N380per litre (settlement with organized labour).”