The National Alliance for Development (NADEV), has said that it would mobilise for an indefinite all Nigeria mass action on September 10 to resist the hikes in electricity tariff and petroleum price if the government does not rescind the decisions.
Publicity secretary of the association, Barrister Dotun Hassan, said in a statement that the announcement of the decision by the Federal Government to increase the pump price of petroleum from the tolerated N145 to N162 per litre should be a matter of urgent national concern to all Nigerians.
He also said the protest is critical because on the same day the government announced the increment, it also announced a sudden increase of 200 per cent in the tariff of electricity, a commodity that he said has remained incessantly unstable for decades.
“We recall that since inception, the current government of President Muhammadu Buhari has increased the fuel pump prices more than five times in a country that is barely struggling to survive on a fast-dwindling economy.
In the light of this development, NADEV hereby makes the following observations:
“1. That the present administration has acted with sheer gross impunity in its handling of matters of national importance since inception.
“2. That by unrepentantly pursuing a set of inconsistent, unfocused and ineffective policies,the current administration has overstressed the Nigerian population that is grappling with a rising spate of general insecurity amidst mounting unmitigated poverty.
“3. That in an environment characterized by harsh economic realities, it is the greatest subversion of any government to continue to decide on important matters of collective national interests at the expense of selfishly pursuing individual narrow-minded and parochial interests as evidenced in this case today.
“4. That the sudden indiscriminate unilateral hike in the pump prices of petroleum and electricity tariffs at a gnashing perilous time when Nigerians are groaning in heroine pains and anguish at period when the inflation rate is put at 12.8%, consequently are forced to live with everything that makes life difficult and unbearable for a people; is not only unacceptable but abhorrent and repugnant to the nation’s sensibility and ordinary sense of decency.
“5. That in an atmosphere infested with entrenched corruption, prolonged insecurity, disabling level of poverty and general economic uncertainties, while not forgetting cancerous infrastructural decay, current astronomical debt profile burden, unstable and unpaid wages, undeniably it is rather insensitive for any government to consciencelessly increase the pump price of fuel and electricity tariff all at once,” he said.
Hassan said in view of the harsh policies of the government, NADEV and all the 60 trans-regional groups and civil society groups that make up the Alliance, decided on the following resolutions.
“1. Pass a vote of no confidence on the current administration of Muhammadu Buhari’s incompetent handling of the economy, national security and corruption.
“2. Demand the immediate and unconditional downward review of the hiked fuel prices and electricity tariff.
“3. Mobilize for an indefinite all Nigeria mass action to resist the hikes and all manifestations of government impunity if current administration grandstands on its grounds.
“4. Send out a clarion call to all Nigerians, the civil society, human and civil rights groups, social and cultural groups to commence the immediate preparation for a possible prolonged mass resistance to these hikes and other forms of impunity to commence on Tuesday, September 10, 2020.”