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Buhari govt’s attempt to justify fuel price hike ‘provocative’ —PDP

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Kola-Ologbondiyan

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday demanded the immediate downward review of the pump price of petrol.

The opposition party in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, accused President Muhammadu Buhari of pushing Nigerians to the wall with his “arrogant display of insensitivity and total disregard to the demands by the citizens.”

It described the attempt by the Federal Government to justify the “wicked” increase in the pump price from N87 per litre to N160 as “provocative, confrontational and totally unacceptable to Nigerians.”

The statement read: “Our party holds that the defence of such a humongous hike, which has worsened the hardship being suffered by Nigerians under the Buhari administration, is in bad taste and should be rescinded immediately.

READ ALSO: No going back on removal of fuel subsidy —Buhari

“It is indeed an unpardonable slap on the sensibilities of Nigerians that after running a heavily corrupt oil trade and subsidy regime, through which over N14trillion had been allegedly frittered by its officials, the Buhari administration seeks to put the burden of high costs on innocent and already impoverished citizens.

“The PDP totally rejects this attempt to hinge the increase in fuel price on presumed removal of oil subsidy when it has failed to account for the proceeds of oil sales in the last five years, even in the face of confession by the (Group) Managing Director of the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation), Mele Kyari, in April this year, that the APC administration had been running an over bloated and sleazy oil subsidy regime.

“Also, the Buhari administration had failed to account for the confession by the NNPC that it was engaged in secret siphoning of oil money through a claimed subsidising of fuel for certain West African countries.”

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