PDP warns fuel price hike will worse living conditions
Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has cautioned President Buhari’s government and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to shelve their planned fuel price hike.
The party said such a move is capable of further impoverishing Nigerians who are already badly affected with the current tough economic situation.
According to PDP in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP said it was aware of plots by the APC and its administration to implement a fuel price hike from its current unbearable level.
The opposition party cautioned APC to immediately perish such contemplations as it would amount to pushing the already impoverished Nigerians to the wall; a situation which it said might result in public restiveness and acerbation of agitations in the land.
PDP lamented that Nigerians are groaning heavily under the weight of economic hardship and high costs occasioned by the unjustified increase in the price of fuel to an unbearable N170 per liter last November, adding that any new fuel price hike might become the last straw that can break the camel’s back.
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“This is because there is no way our compatriots can survive a further fuel price increase with its attendant increase in cost of goods and services, which will worsen the current agonising economic situation, where over 90 million citizens live in abject poverty, with an alarming 23 per cent unemployment rate and many more living below N500 a day,” the statement added.
PDP pointed out that APC and its administration have no justification ever to increase fuel prices to even above N100 per litre as there are practical options available to maintain affordable price template, given national production capacity and potentialities.
The party condemned attempt by the APC administration to compare Nigeria’s domestic fuel price to those of other countries where their governments are sincere and working hard in running productive economies that boost purchasing power of citizens.
“With an official N30,000 federal monthly minimum wage, which represents a N1,000 daily wage, compared to a country like Saudi Arabia with monthly 3,000 Riyals, a daily 100 Riyals (N10,161), there is no foundation to compare fuel price in Nigeria to that of Saudi Arabia where citizens earn ten times higher than their counterparts in Nigeria.
“It is clear that the sordid increases in fuel price in Nigeria are products of nebulous indices coming from an incompetent and overtly corrupt APC administration under whose watch APC leaders had stolen over N15 trillion from our oil coffers and other national sources.
“Our party, therefore, rejects any contemplation towards fuel price increase. We urge President Muhammadu Buhari to rather end the corruption in his administration, recover the stolen N15 trillion and seek help in evolving viable options for affordable price template, given our national production capacity and potentialities,” PDP said.
