The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected the April 1 tweaking of fuel price from N125 to N123.5 by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The party, in a statement on Thursday night by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan insisted that the price should be brought down to N90 per liter as “canvassed by Nigerians”.
The party said, “Our party describes the reduction of pump price by N1.50k as offensive, fraudulent; a further display of cruelty and insensitivity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the plight of Nigerians, particularly as the nation battles the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The PDP insists that the correct price of pump price fuel is between N80 to N90 per liter, given the slump in the price of fuel and crude oil in the international market.
“The PDP holds that any price beyond that is completely unacceptable, as it amount to fleecing Nigerians.”
The opposition party berated the APC administration, accusing them of attempting to delude Nigerians by tweaking the cost decimals to create a misleading impression of price reduction while fleecing the unsuspecting public.
It then challenged the APC and its administration to explain how they arrived at the pump price of N123.5 instead of the appropriate price of N90 per liter despite the fall in international price.
“The PDP asks the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to disprove Nigerians by immediately publishing the full prevailing landing cost, the prevailing 3% depot cost, the 3% trucking cost as well as the retail outlet admin cost and show why the pump price should be above N90 per liter.
“It indeed smacks of heartlessness that the APC, its leaders and cronies in government circle are rather manipulating fuel costs at this critical time when other governments across the world are seeking ways to mitigate the economic hardship being faced by their citizens.
“Our party maintains that since Nigerians earlier had to bear the brunt of high cost of fuel in the face of high oil prices in the international market, it is only fair that they also enjoy the benefits of the cut in international prices; an advantage the APC had continued to deny them,” the statement added.
The party, therefore, called on Nigerians to note how the APC and its leaders had allegedly remained silent and failed to support the demand for reduction of fuel price; a development, it said, “only points to apparent complicity in this sleazy scheme against our citizens.”
The PDP insisted that the APC and its administration should immediately reduce the pump price to the “appropriate price of N90 as well as refund the accruable, so far, from the N35 per liter difference and channel same to provision of palliatives to Nigerians.
“Our party also challenges the APC to join the PDP and other well-meaning Nigerians in our persistent demand that President Buhari orders the recovery of over N14 trillion oil money stolen by APC leaders in the last four years including the stolen N9 trillion detailed in the leaked NNPC memo, and redirect same to the welfare of Nigerians.”