The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has called on the Federal Government to order the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to reverse the announced increment of pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
The organisation asked the government to stick to the claim by the Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Heineken Lokpobiri, that President Bola Tinubu administration did not instruct the NNPCL to increase the fuel pump price.
Afenifere, in a statement signed by its spokesman, Jare Ajayi, asserted that Nigerians are currently going through a lot of challenges due to biting socio-economic crunch and the attendant hardships.
“It is therefore a wrong time to come up with any policy that will increase the undesirable challenges Nigerians are going through presently. Failure by the NNPCL to reverse the latest increment in fuel price will rub off negatively on some policies of Tinubu administration to ease things for the citizens, such as the Students Loan Scheme and Consumer Credit Scheme that are just taking off.”
The NNPCL had on Tuesday, September 3, 2024, raised the pump price of petrol to N897 per litre from the official price of N617. The announcement came just a few days after the national oil company said it was facing challenges of huge debt burden estimated at $6.8 billion.
Afenifere noted that the announcement of the hike ironically came just not long after the NNPCL announced that it made a profit of N3.3trillion net profit in its 2023 audited financial statement.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Lokpobiri, had also announced on Tuesday, this week, through his Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Nnemeka Okafor, that his Ministry did not authorise the NNPCL to increase fuel pump price.
Afenifere continued: “It is crucial, therefore, that the government order the company to reverse the price hike forthwith as it is already causing untold hardship for the people.
“With the latest increase in the price of PMS, otherwise known as petrol to N897 per litre, the cost of fuel in Nigeria has risen by 460 per cent in 15 months.”
Afenifere contended that it is curious that an organisation that declared a profit running into trillions of naira could, almost in the same breath, claim that it is indebted to the tune of nearly seven billion US dollars, saying: “Why not pay off the debt from the available fund before declaring it as profit?”
The statement further argued that the oil company seems to be making Nigerians pay for its inefficiency.
“It is a common knowledge that the cost and availability of energy, such as petrol, gas, electricity, diesel and kerosene are major factors not only in production and services but also on the quality of well-being that Nigerians can enjoy.
“Hikes in prices of these energy sources have astronomically increased the costs of services and commodities, reduced the disposal incomes of average Nigerians and heighten their health risk.
“The combination of all these are making a daily living an onerous task for the majority of the citizens. Considering the fact that millions of the Nigerians had been described as being ‘multi-dimensionally poor’, the recent hike in costs of fuel and electricity are uploading the number of people in that category phenomenally.”
Afenifere expressed concerns that failure to do so may imperil the assurances being giving by President Tinubu that pains of Nigerians would be over soon.
