By Valentine Amanze
Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has called on the All Progressives Congress-led (APC) Federal Government to slash the pump price of fuel to reflect the prevalent slump in the cost of crude oil and petroleum products in the international market.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP insisted that the APC and its government had no reason to continue to retain the pump price of fuel at N125 per litre despite the crash in the international price of crude oil.
The opposition party also pointed out that with the prevalent international price, the appropriate price template for domestic pump price of fuel in Nigeria should be between N60 to N70 per litre in response to the variables of international market forces.
The PDP stressed that the APC government ought to have reduced the pump price earlier in the year to N90 per litre when crude oil price slumped to about $30 per barrel.
It, however, wondered why the APC administration had continued with N125 per litre, even with the further fall in the price of crude oil price.
Besides, it berated the APC and cautioned it to stop fleecing Nigerians whom it said were battling with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It therefore advised the Federal Government to reduce the pump price of fuel without further delay.
The PDP also called on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to immediately declare the billions of naira accruable as “overcharge from the inappropriate N125 per litre” since the crash in crude oil price and channel the funds for palliatives to Nigerians.
It further advised the NNPC to waste no further time in recovering the proceeds of its alleged sleazy and over-bloated oil subsidy regime, which should also be channeled as palliatives to Nigerians.
It stated: “Nigerians can recall that the NNPC had, earlier in the month, confessed
that the APC administration had, in the last five years, engaged in underhand subsidy deals, which included a hazy under-recovery for unnamed West African countries, running into trillions of naira, while Nigerians continued to bear the burden on unsubsidized fuel.”
Besides, the PDP also appealed to the National Assembly to immediately investigate the fuel price overcharge as well as the fraudulent subsidy regime through which over N14 trillion had allegedly been frittered by a few unscrupulous individuals operating as a cabal in government circles.