The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) has censured the recent reduction of the price of the Premium Motor Spirit otherwise known as Petrol by the Federal Government from N97 per litre to N87 per litre.
The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke who announced this at a press conference in Abuja, said that the new price regime would take effect immediately.
Reacting to the reduction, the Executive Chairman of the Coalition, Mr. Debo Adeniran said the FG’s step smacks of hypocrisy.
“The reduction in the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) from N97 to N87 smelt of hypocrisy. They only told us they reduced the price of PMS, what of Kerosine and diesel which are consumed, if not more or in larger quantity than the petrol. What has been done so far is haphazard. The reduction is not proportional to the reduction in the prices of crude in the international market.
When the price of petroleum products were hiked, they told us it was because the price of crude had gone up in the international market and they had to subsidise, but now the price has gone down more than 70 per cent, we expect the N97 petrol price and the prices of other petroleum product should have gone down about 70 per cent too.
The reduction is coming far behind the time we expected and it makes the whole thing look like a political gimmicks, a kind of action engineered by political expediency. It doesn’t really matter, what we demand of our political rulers is that Nigerians should not be taken for a ride because the amount of difference between the time they ought to have reduced the prices of petroleum products and now is so enormous.
Hence, the government should be ready to account for what happens to the different that accrued between the time of the global fall and the time they’re doing the reduction. Besides, it’s a very long time subsidy has been totally removed from diesel and Nigerians have not seen any corresponding benefit. In essence, what has been done so far is just to bamboozle the Nigerian populace,” Adeniran averred.
Abimbola Adegoke
Media Officer, CACOL
