Barely a day after the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) in Nigeria announced an increase in electricity tariff that took effect from September 1, the Federal Government on Wednesday, September 2, through the Pipeline and Product Marketing Company (PPMC), further announced a new price regime which increased the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known s petrol, from N138.62 to N151.56 per litre.
The petrol price hike was disclosed in an internal memo from PPMC’s Ibadan depot to all stakeholders with reference number PPMC/IB/LS/020 dated September 2, 2020 and signed by D.O Abalaka.
This has fuelled anxiety and anger across the country as Nigerians brace up for “a total showdown“ with the government over the increase.
The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) is leading the way with a vehement rejection of the hike in fuel price especially at this period of intense hardship occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reacting to the increase, NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, expressed shock, saying “it’s like Nigerians are being taken for a ride, the increase in price of petroleum is like adding insult to injury”.
“The increase in price of petroleum has happened now more than three times in three months, only yesterday they hiked the tariff of electricity. And to compound it they also reduced the interest rate of savings which affects mostly the poor and the vulnerable,” Wabba said.
“While rejecting this with the strongest terms, I think Nigerian government is taking Nigerians for granted. At the end of the day, Nigerians are becoming poorer and poorer, in fact many people are already on the edge. Many workers are already on the edge,” he said.
Wabba said the NLC certainly cannot guarantee industrial peace and harmony, “and we will have to call our organs and we will have to also react but we reject it in its entirety”.
“They have betrayed the trust of Nigerians, for Nigerians to be protected against the economic challenge that is affecting us,” he said.
The labour movement will hold an emergency meeting today, Thursday, September 3, and from reports available to BusinessDay, the labour leaders are already strategizing to mobilize Nigerians for a strike and protest against the hike.
Also expressing shock and disappointment, the National Consultative Front (NCFront), a group of Nigerians championing for better life for Nigerians, has described the hike in petrol price as President Muhammadu Buhari’s “ vengeance mission” against Nigerians even as they accused the Buhari government of weaponising poverty to subdue Nigerians.
The NCFront in a statement by Tanko Yunusa, Head, Public Affairs Bureau, said it is incensed and aghast over President Buhari government’s inhuman ambush of Nigerians with an increase in the ex-depot price, decreed to take effect same Tuesday.
The statement read: “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.
“We utterly regret that the administration is carrying on as if its sole aim of seeking and acquiring another term of political power is to punish Nigerians for a supposed grouse that has remained unclear.
“Else, there’s no other reason as to why a government would so prey on hapless citizens still battling with untold hardship foisted by Covid 19 lockdown. However, it is now up to the Nigerians to join hands with NCFront Leaders of conscience in emancipating themselves from a ruling class that can neither guarantee their security nor care about their welfare.”
The NCFront noted that some of the litany of woes visited on Nigerian citizens by the Buhari Government range from the serial increase in petroleum products since it came into power, jacking up of the Value Added Tax (VAT), introduction of stamp duties in all banking transactions, and the “obnoxious, callous and unconscionable recent introduction of tax on all Tenancy and Lease Agreements.”
The group warned that if nothing is done by Nigerians, the government will impose harsher economic policies tailored towards ensuring that the citizenry is pauperised into docility and submission to the administration’s full-blown dictatorial proclivities.
“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,” it stated.
A public affairs analyst, who does not want his name on print, describe the increase a “callous decision” by the Buhari Government to inflict severe hardship on hapless Nigerians. He charged Nigerians to rise against the litany of “obnoxious policies” and join well meaning organizations to march across the country in protest against these policies.
