The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA on Thursday condemned what it termed government’s ill-advised haste to increase the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, otherwise known as petrol, across the country to N145 per litre, warning that the spiraling implications of the hike would include a spike in social crimes and unrest.
Declaring that it was reckless, insensitive and irrational for government to remove fuel subsidy, it claimed that the action is meant to inflict maximum financial burden on the already absolutely impoverished millions of Nigerians, particularly the rural poor.
The rights group, in a statement jointly signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, stressed that the action of government amounted to imposing hardship on poor Nigerians for the failings of government.
It accused the government of failing to properly and transparently administer the fuel subsidy policy and wondered why Nigerians could be made to suffer for the financial indiscretions of the elites who stole nearly a trillion Naira from the subsidy fund over the past few years.
“What has happened to all those Nigerian elites who mismanaged the huge sums approved as fuel subsidy fund? Why has this government not acted on the investigative findings of the National Assembly on the theft of fuel subsidy allocations by powerful businessmen some of whom are still seen wielding influences in the top most corridors of power in Abuja?” the statement asked.
HURIWA averred that the federal government “goofed by inflicting this burden on Nigerians when it has not practically implemented measures to build more functional refineries in Nigeria rather than continue to import petrol into a nation that is rated as the number 7th largest producer of crude oil in the world.”
It insisted that there is no justification for the hike in pump price of petrol when it is clear that transportation and the general costs of living will automatically go up in a nation with one of the highest unemployment rate globally.
Noting that the hike in pump price of fuel has already started inflicting pains and economic adversities on poor Nigerians as transportation and prices of commodities have been jerked up, HURIWA said: “We urge government to device immediate measures of paying fuel subsidy directly to the poorest members of the society who are both jobless and are caught up in the poverty circle.
“Rather than abolish subsidy, the best strategy would have being to introduce better innovative ways of sending fuel purchasing vouchers directly to the nearly 80 million heavily impoverished Nigerians. What the government has done by this policy indiscretion is to create the enabling environment for the rapid expansion of social discontents and disaffections which could snowball into escalation of violent crime”.
“Why should government take such a draconian measure to hike the pump price of fuel when it has not created a single sustainable job for the nearly 80 million unemployed Nigerians?” the pro-transparency group asked.
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