Fuel, Electricity price hike: APC, Buhari are punishing Nigerians — PDP
By Tunde Opalana
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vehemently rejected the fresh increase in the price of fuel to ₦151.56 per litre and electricity tariff to ₦66 per kwh under the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its government, describing such as callous, cruel, and punishing, according to findings by DAILY TIMES.
The party demanded an immediate reversal of the prices to avert a national crisis.
The astronomical increase, the party insisted will result in an upsurge in costs of goods and services and worsen the biting hardship being faced by Nigerians, “who are already impoverished and overburdened by the high cost of living imposed by the APC on Nigerians in the last five years”.
Condemning what it described as a misdemeanor, the PDP in a statement by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan said “our party asserts that by increasing the price of fuel from the ₦87 per litre it sold under the PDP to an excruciating ₦151 while at the same time allowing the hike in electricity tariff from ₦30.23 per kwh to over ₦66, the APC has left no one in doubt that its agenda is to inflict pain and hardship on Nigerians to satisfy their selfish interests.
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“The unjustifiable increase in the price of these essential supplies, coming barely a week after the APC brazenly posted support for a fuel price hike, while attempting to rationalize the excruciating hardship being suffered by Nigerians under the Buhari administration, has further confirmed that the APC is at the centre of the harsh policies of the Buhari Presidency.
“It is distressing that the APC administration increased the cost of essential commodities at the time the leadership of other countries is offering palliatives to their citizens to cushion the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is instructive to add that our nation is doomed under the APC watch.
“We know that the APC is an unfeeling party but it is indeed shocking that it could go to the extent of approving such a hike at this trying time when many Nigerians are struggling to afford staple foods and other necessities of life.”
The party challenged the APC and the Buhari administration to publish the parameters with which it arrived at the increase of fuel price to ₦151.56 per litre given that with the prevailing values in the international market, the appropriate price template for domestic pump price in Nigeria ought not to be above ₦100 per litre.
It further challenged the APC-led Federal Government to publish details of its “sleazy and over-bloated oil subsidy regime, including the involvement of APC interests in the claimed under-recovery for unnamed West African countries, running into trillions of naira,” while Nigerians are made to bear the burden of high fuel costs.
“Moreover, the APC and its government have failed to allow an open investigation into allegations of fuel price overcharge as well as the fraudulent subsidy regime through which over ₦14 trillion had allegedly been frittered by unscrupulous individuals in the APC.
“Our fear is that the APC is pushing Nigerians to the wall with its obnoxious and anti-people proclivities and we caution that nobody should misinterpret the peaceful and law-abiding nature of Nigerians as a sign of weakness,” added the PDP.
The opposition party, therefore, restated its call on the National Assembly to save the nation by calling the APC and its administration to order before plunging nation into chaos.
