PDP Wants Petrol Pump Price Reduced To N70 Per Litre Now
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday advised the federal government to stop fleecing Nigerians with high fuel price; instead, it should immediately reduce the pump price to N70 per litre to reflect the appropriate pricing template following the fall in the price of crude oil in the international market.
The party in a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said it completely rejected the N121 per litre price announced by the federal government, which has even remained unenforced, describing it as highly provocative and a further display of the insensitivity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the plight of Nigerians, particularly as they battle the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
PDP insisted that N121 per liter price amounts to fleecing Nigerians of over N50 per litre of fuel.
This, it said, is in continuation of the N55 per litre overcharge, which Nigerians had borne under the inappropriate N125 per litre, which prevailed for months before it was brought down to N123.5 per litre, in spite of the crash in international price for crude oil.
It further stated that it rejected the unnecessary price pinching, demanding that the government should without further delay, implement the appropriate price as well as declare and account for the billions of naira accruable as overcharge since the crash in crude oil price.
According to the statement, “The failure to reduce the pump price as well as the non-declaration of the overcharge is completely unacceptable to Nigerians, as it only points to questions of corruption in the system.”
The PDP insisted that the APC and its government have no justifiable reason to retain the pump price of fuel at over N70 per litre, declaring that it again challenged the APC administration to disprove Nigerians by immediately publishing the prevailing landing cost, depot cost, trucking cost as well as the retail outlet admin cost, and show why the pump price should be above N70 per litre.”
The party also urged the National Assembly to protect the interest of the people by using their legislative instruments to prevail on the federal government to implement the appropriate fuel pricing and account for the overcharges.
