A pro-democracy and non-governmental organization – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has accused the Presidency of deliberately sabotaging the petrol supply chains in a bid to blackmail Nigerians to accept pump price hike.
Also, the Rights group has condemned the clear case of being ‘bought over’ by federal government of the two hitherto most critical civil society stakeholders – the Nigerian Labour Congress(NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) which has compelled the compromised hierarchies to remain silent in the face of massively phenomenal suffering; agonies and pains by the masses in the face of artificially induced and State sponsored scarcity of petroleum products all across Nigeria.
In a media statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA has therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari and Dr. Ibe Kachikwu to step down immediately as senior and junior ministers of petroleum for consistently failing to bring the deliberate sabotage of petrol supply chains in the last two months to an effective halt.
Besides, HURIWA said empirical evidences are unambiguous even to the undiscerning citizens that the duo of President Buhari and Kachikwu are grossly incompetent and lack the capacity to ensure the smooth distribution of petroleum products all across the country even as the policing institution is so heavily compromised, grossly indisciplined, and rudderless to effectively check the persistent criminal hoarding in a very systematic way of the petroleum products by centripetal and centrifugal forces in the petroleum subsector of the economy.
HURIWA further blamed the security forces such as the Nigerian customs services and immigration for dereliction of duty which has allowed all shades of criminal gangs to embark and engage in the bonanza and evil enterprise of smuggling of petroleum products to neighboring nations whereby these merchants of death make unjustifiable profits.
“President Buhari who is the self-imposed senior petroleum minister and his subordinate Dr. Kachikwu have collectively demonstrated an intolerable level of incompetence and non-challance which have allowed criminal forces to dictate the phase of fuel supply networks.
HURIWA condemned the inability of the current administration to fix the four refineries so as to increase and improve their refining capacities to be able to meet with the increasing local demands even as the Rights group blamed selfish commercial benefits for the deliberate refusal of government to introduce transparency and accountability in the petroleum industry but has allowed organized criminal gangs to continue to ride roughshod on the legitimate demands of Nigerians for affordable premium motor spirit.
“The masses must take their destiny in their hands and mobilize themselves in smaller numbers to shout to High Heavens and demand immediate change of the hardship being inflicted on all of us by officials of government and merchants of petrol who are only out to enrich their pockets. The Labour Unions have been settled. Most of us in the civil society community have being bribed to keep quiet even as others have been driven underground due to economic depression and the insecurity that have become the order of the day. Nigerians must fight their own battle now”.
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