Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has strongly condemned the Federal Government over the sudden fuel price hike announced on Tuesday, describing the move which it termed an ‘unending fuel price hike’ in the country as insensitive which it said was driving inflation to the rooftops and making life increasingly unbearable for Nigerians generally.
It would be recalled that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), on Tuesday announced a sudden increase in the pump price of litres of petrol to sell at N617 in Abuja and N568 in Lagos.
CUPP said this on Wednesday in its reaction to the sudden increase in a statement signed by its National Co-Spokesperson, Comrade Mark Adebayo, describing the action on the part of the authorities as “sudden and surreptitious increase yet again” barely a month after the fuel price was hiked by over 300 per cent on May 29th this year, following removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The body, while further condemning the hike, noted that it had immediately started having negative domino effects on all other commodities and services in the country and further drowning most Nigerians into excruciating poverty and unprecedented economic woes, just as it observed that the subsidy removal scheme was increasingly looking like a scam to cage Nigerians inside a preprogrammed regime of socioeconomic slavery dictated by leadership insensitivity.
According to CUPP, its stand on the issue is not about opposition parties, saying that as an opposition platform it “actually felt that the president had something better to offer Nigerians after the subsidy removal but what we are witnessing now is a double negative impact on Nigerians in every way imaginable.
“It has come to the attention of the CUPP the sudden and surreptitious increase yet again in the pump prices of petrol by NNPCL which has immediately started having negative domino effects on all other commodities and services in the country and further drowning most Nigerians into excruciating poverty and unprecedented economic woes.
“This subsidy removal scheme is increasingly looking like a scam to cage Nigerians inside a pre-programmed regime of socioeconomic slavery dictated by leadership insensitivity. This is not about opposition parties. The opposition actually felt that the president had something better to offer Nigerians after the subsidy removal but what we are witnessing now is a double negative impact on Nigerians in every way imaginable,” CUPP said.
“The way NNPCL is behaving now suggests that there is a hidden agenda of crazy and unending fuel price hikes that will be driving inflation to the rooftops and making life increasingly unbearable for Nigerians generally,” it added.
CUPP posited that no purposeful government would recklessly abandon its citizens to the unpredictable and inhumane market forces that were essentially atrocious and callous in nature without a robust intervention to protect the citizens, declaring that such policy was not only anti-social but also outrageously iniquitous.
The group noted that Nigerians had shown enough understanding of the subsidy removal, cautioning the Federal Government not to push them to the wall and thereby instigate unmanageable mass crises that could further jeopardize the life of the common man.
“No purposeful government would recklessly abandon its citizens to the unpredictable and inhumane market forces that are essentially atrocious and callous in nature without a robust intervention to protect the citizens.
“Such a policy is not only antisocial but also outrageously iniquitous. Nigerians have shown enough understanding of the subsidy removal, this administration should not push them to the wall and thereby instigate unmanageable mass crises that could further jeopardise the life of the common man.”
It, therefore, called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu “to immediately show himself as a compassionate leader by ensuring that the NNPCL is not hijacked by the same forces that stole the fuel subsidy monies leading to its removal and finding a backdoor to continue claiming the subsidy by other means and making Nigerians bear the brunt of their economic terrorism.”
This was just as CUPP demanded the immediate removal of the NNPCL GMD, Mele Kyari, to allow for a breath of fresh air in the organisation and for his tenure to be forensically investigated and all discovered infractions comprehensively prosecuted before the NNPCL is turned into the terrorist arm of the economic cabal.
“The government must immediately do something to reverse the recent fuel price hikes and stop any future plans to clandestinely increase the pump prices with the predictable value of increasing the sufferings of Nigerians,” the group said.
“When will Nigerians be free from the wickedness of their government?” it queried.
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