OPC Condemns Removal Of Fuel Subsidy, Decries High Cost Of Gas, Fuel

By Akinwale Kasali

A faction of the Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, formed by Late Dr. Frederick Fasheun, is lamenting the high cost of Fuel and Gas, and has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Government to, with immediate effect, halt the removal of fuel subsidy.

The Group demanded that pending when the nation’s four refineries would begin local production, the Buhari administration  must rescind any plan to remove fuel subsidy.

This call was made by the OPC in a statement signed by its President, Otunba Wasiu Afolabi, popularly called Askari. It stated that  scrapping fuel subsidies without locally-produced fuel would further escalate inflation, endanger industries and increase the hardship Nigerians already suffer.

OPC demanded that the Government should equally tame the galloping prices of cooking gas, domestic kerosene and aviation fuel.

The statement reads: “Many households and families are suffering due to the high cost of cooking gas and domestic kerosine. They want the government to alleviate their sufferings by ensuring that the price of gas, for example, returns to N256/kg at most, instead of the current astronomical price of N850/kg.”

It further stated that the price of diesel has also sky-rocketed from N190 to N810, Which has, in turn, had a negative effect on industries and transportation with attendant high cost of goods and services.

According to the OPC president, lower fuel prices will reduce inflation, restore the health of the devalued Naira and increase the purchasing power of citizens, with the overall boosting of the economy.

Challenging the government to invest in local production of fuel instead of importation, Afolabi said Buhari must see to the revamping of the country’s four refineries and encourage the abundant establishment of functional modular refineries.

“What is happening today was not what General Muhammadu Buhari promised Nigerians when he was campaigning in 2014. His promise to change the fuel situation by revamping the four refineries was attractive to Nigerians who were dissatisfied with the high cost of imported fuel. Nigerians voted for change. Now the situation is even worse.

“How do you explain that Buhari called fuel subsidy of N306.92 billion a scam in 2015, but under him fuel subsidy rose to N1.43 trillion in 2021 and N4 trillion in 2022?

“By running the economy on imported fuel these past seven years, the Buhari government has sacrificed Nigerians to the unchained greediness of an evil cabal that has deliberately paralysed local refining. Clearly, no country will do well under such a system. Time has come to say, ‘Enough is Enough.’

“President Buhari, as the Minister of Petroleum, lacks any excuse to import petroleum products at all. Nigeria is an oil-producing country. Nigerians are blessed with petroleum resources and they deserve to enjoy the benefits of this God-given gift.”

Afolabi went down memory lane, and said that when Buhari took over in 2015, petrol was sold for N87 at the fuel pump, as against N190, which is over 120 percent increment.

OPC equally faulted the high price of aviation fuel, saying the situation had increased the cost of flight tickets and made travelling by air expensive, unattractive and nightmarish.

Afolabi said: “It is unreasonable that just a few months back aviation fuel sold for N190 and today it has increased to N880. Yet the government allows the situation to continue, without doing anything to bring this alarming situation under control. This is unacceptable.”