Former deputy president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Amaechi Asugwuni, said that a proposed nationwide strike will go ahead as planned on Wednesday, due to the way the Nigerian federal government has handled the process of removing subsidies.

President Bola Tinubu's recent declaration that “fuel subsidy is gone” has led to fuel shortages throughout the country. Asugwuni warned that any further increase in fuel prices without a plan for refinery production in Nigeria could make the nation appear unwise on the global stage.
 
According to Asugwuni, Nigerians are fully aware of the subsidy process, and they know that the government must have a working refinery in place before removing subsidies.

He stated, "Strike is inevitable because people know that the Nigerian government was paying subsidies because it is not refining itself. So, doing away with subsidy without you refining after 30 years or more suggests incompetence." 
 
Asugwuni criticised the Nigerian government's reliance on the Dangote petrochemical refinery, which he believes will not bring down the cost of petrol. He also warned that promoting the Dangote refinery instead of investing in national refineries would be a bad mistake.

He argued that Dangote's refinery should not be the sole determinant of petrol pricing. 
 
Asugwuni believes that the decision to remove subsidies was motivated by political considerations and was timed to coincide with the Buhari government's departure.

He told Channels Television Sunrise Daily that there were also budgetary issues to consider, as well as a desire to kickstart the Dangote refinery.

He also suggested that NNPC's decision to increase the price of petrol was illegal and that market forces now surpassed the corporation's control. 
 
Asugwuni lamented the impact of the subsidy removal on minimum wage, stating that it is an economic challenge to the standard of living in Nigeria. He believes that the effects of the subsidy reduction have not yet been felt evenly across the market.
 
As of 15 April 2021, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has refused to increase its pump price of fuel, citing the fact that its supplies are freighted in from other countries, which adds to the costs it already faces.

The government had denied that it planned to remove the subsidy, only for NNPC to increase the fuel price, claiming that the subsidy had been removed.