EXTRAORDINARY times call for extraordinary moves. The House of Representatives seemingly understood that by holding a session last Sunday to mediate on the fuel subsidy crisis.

Though belated, it is important that the House showed it understood that in trying times, as we are going through, important voices like the House’s should not be missing.

The contrast was the Senate – supposedly the senior partner in the national legislature – which went into convenient slumber only for the Senate President David Bonaventure Mark to re-surface when the shutdown of the country commenced. Where was the Senate? Did it buckle under pressure from the Executive?

Nigeria was under fire. The President pitched himself against the populist view that the timing for removing fuel subsidy was wrong, just as the sales pitch of planned projects from subsidy savings was unconvincing. Neither government nor organised labour was ready to back down. The voices from the House of Representatives were important in providing support for the people.

The Federal Government was on one side, askance, defiant, possibly unperturbed about the agonising times the removal of subsidy on fuel visited on Nigerians. The government is adamant about the price of petrol. The president’s broadcast on Saturday contributed nothing significantly new to the debate.

Each new move adds to the unpopular positions government is pushing. How would a cut in the salaries of ministers affect the price of petrol? When did government notice Nigerians needed mass transit buses? How did it arrive at the magic number of 1,600 buses to serve the country? When will boats for the creeks arrive? Are those placard-bearing Nigerians on solidarity visits to Abuja aware of how the price of fuel would transmute their lives?

Government and labour have ignored the advice of the House: reverting to the old price of N65 and deferment of the protests and the recommencement of negotiations. Still the House deserves commendation for calling off his break for a national emergency. What is left is for it to keep pushing government and Labour to commence negotiations of the new price of petrol and firm commitments (included in the budget) to the projects the government says will transform the economy.

For government, the impact of the price of petrol remains speculative. The ordinary people who bear the brunt of the removal have applauded the House of Representatives. Attempts to introduce religion into the matter, by suggesting that the House should not have met on a Sunday, shows some people failed to note that the country was in an emergency and time was of essence in rescuing it.

Negotiation would be critical to resolving the crisis. The House should be commended for recommending it. All parties should embrace it quickly.