By Chukwudi Nweje
The National Consultative Front, (NCFront), led by former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’Abba and former Presidential Adviser, Prof Pat Utomi has condemned the hike in the price of petrol.
The Petroleum Products Marketing Company, (PPMC) a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC), Tuesday increased the ex-depot price of Premium Motor Spirit, (PMS), also known as petrol, from N138.62 per litre to N151.56 per litre. The price adjustment took immediate effect.
NCFront in a statement by its Head, Public Affairs Bureau, Dr. Tanko Yunusa, described the price increase “as inhuman ambush of Nigerians”, noting that it ill “worsen the woes of Nigerians who have just been yoked with an increased electricity tariff among other devastating policies of government.”
He said, “Being a grassroot mass movement, we have observed the melancholic mood of Nigerians following reports that the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Tuesday increased the ex-depot price of PMS from N138.62 per litre to N151.56 per litre. With the ex-depot price being the amount at which the product is sold to marketers at the depots, it is a no-brainer that this unconscionable hike by the Federal Government will translate to an increase in the pump price of petrol thus worsening the woes of Nigerians who have just been yoked with an increased electricity tariff amongst other devastating policies of government.”
It said the President Muhammadu Buhari -led All Progressive Congress ((APC) government “is carrying on as if its sole aim of seeking and acquiring another term is to punish Nigerian citizens who are still battling with untold hardship foisted by Covid 19 lockdown.”
Tanko called on Nigerians to join hands with the NCFront and emancipate themselves “from a ruling class that can neither guarantee their security nor care about their welfare.”
He said, “Nigerians, if nothing is done can expect more vindictive economic policies tailored towards ensuring that the citizenry is pauperised into docility and submission to the administration’s full-blown dictatorial proclivities. The recent punitive amount of N5 Million for hate speech announced by the Minister for Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, was another building block in the construction of the edifice for despotic rulership by the Buhari regime.
“We believe that the impoverishment of citizens by the demobilising economic policies of the Buhari government is aimed at weakening Nigerians’ resolve to challenge the ruling political at elections by making them docile, malleable and submissive to the Buhari regime. Nigerians can wean themselves off their complacency and docility by joining NCFront to pull off a major Electoral Ballot Revolution that is underway.
“Given that the pay of Nigerian workers can barely take them home, it is wicked for those in authority to feed from the little they depend on for their survival as it is criminally to tamper with their rights under whatsoever guise. Therefore, If it is about reducing overhead cost, governors must leave workers salary alone and rather focus on their security votes and other funds being wasted on their coterie of do-nothing appointees”, NCFront said.