Fuel: Group urges IPMAN, PTD, NUPENG to prepare for subsidy removal

A citizens-led anti-sabotage group on the aegis of The Natives has asked all the stakeholders in the oil industry to start preparing for fuel subsidy removal by June 2023, saying the country cannot continue with the regime of fuel subsidy that benefits only a few.

It also cautioned the Depots and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) and other stakeholders in the oil sector to stop threatening the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited in its efforts to make the product available to Nigerians.

The organisation was reacting to a media report credited to the Petroleum Tanker Drivers Branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, (PTD-NUPENG) threatening another strike.

In the report, NUPENG had accused security agents of “illegal activities and high-handedness” particularly the Military Task Force operating in the Port Harcourt zone.

But in a statement signed and released Thursday in Abuja, by the President General of The Natives, Hon. Smart Edwards, the group said instead of threatening the NNPCL and sabotaging Nigerians, DAPPMAN and other Unions in the oil sector should devise another productive means of resolving the impasse among the stakeholders and not causing Nigerians panic.

The statement said: “We read with disappointment the media reports credited to NUPENG against efforts to enforce sanity by the joint task force on illegal activities by marketers and we called on DAPPMAN and other Unions in the Oil Sector to stop sabotaging the masses.

“We call on depot owners in the oil sector to stop their acts of economic sabotage capable of imposing hardship on the masses.

“Again, fuel subsidy will be removed in June this year and it is a must, therefore DAPPMAN and all other unions and associations must be ready to make sacrifices as the year progresses.”

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