The Coalition of Northern Group (CNG) has called on the federal government to announce an immediate and unconditional reversal of the prices of fuel to the earlier N145 per litre and electricity tariff to N23.
CNG Spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman in a statement Friday said it would not hesitate to put the public on alert for a possible prolonged nationwide resistance in the likely event of government opting to grandstand.
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He then urged the FG to further assure Nigerians of ‘regularity in quality and quantity of supply, assume full control of commodity pricing, jettison all aspects of unwarranted taxation, halt the current multi sectoral extortion by multinational service providers, banks and other financial institutions’.
According to him, “The recent announcement of the federal government’s decision to hike the prices of such essentials as petroleum products and electricity have ignited widespread discontent and anger across every segment of the Nigerian society.
“Concerned about this mounting national anger, the Coalition of Northern Groups met in Kaduna to review the alarming rise in the cost of living in the face of pervasive poverty and fast spreading general insecurity of lives and property.
“The meeting was also to underscore the failure of public policies on the key pillars required for building a strong national economy, security, unity and survival, which have resulted in enormous hardship to vast segments of the Nigerian population.”
He noted that whereas the present administration had upon inception identified economic revival and security as major components of the three pillars of its change agenda, its entire national economy and law and order assets appear incapable of arresting an imminent drift towards poverty and the likelihood of the setting in of anarchy.
He added, “The government’s mismanagement of an economy already adjudged in a second recession, is characterized by significant loss of output, massive youth unemployment, a rising level of poverty, instability, and irregular migration of skilled and unskilled labour.
“That despite the administration’s claims to fighting a war against corruption, the entrenchment of mediocrity has left the country worse than it was five years ago in the global corruption perception index.
“That the present administration had been tolerated for too long even with its level of impunity in the dispatch of goods and services which gravely endanger the peace, unity and development of the country.
“That the administration’s audacious impunity climaxed with hikes in fuel pump prices from an initial N87 to N151.50k per litre; electricity tariff from N22 to N66 ; and Value Added Tax (VAT) to 7.5% from 5%.
“These unjustified and unjustifiably indiscriminate increases with concomitant effects on life sustaining essentials like foodstuff and foreign exchange rates have resulted in exponential escalation of inflation, despair, crime and criminality.”
He decried that the increase in commodities since the coming in of the present administration saying, “the cost of a bag of rice for instance, had risen sharply to N28,000 from N8,500; bag of maize to N21,000 from N3,000 and fertilizer to N12,000 from N2,500.”
“Dollar exchange rate has risen to N480 from N195; ECA to $2.5bn from $72m; external debt to $27bn from $9.6bn. Crime and criminality; insurgency and banditry; armed robbery and kidnappings; rampant rapes and sexual abuses, smuggling and corruption; poverty, hunger and destitution; IDPs; unemployment and school dropouts have thus escalated to totally unacceptable proportions.
“External reserve; value of human life, Naira value, International respect, citizens’ dignity, standards of education, health and life expectancy have fallen drastically.”
He noted that government has lost the courage to assume sole responsibility for the regulation and control of market forces and allowing IPMAN become sole determinants of prices of fuel while banks impose ridiculous charges on customers at will and telecom operators extort Nigerians in exchange for low grade services.
“We are strongly convinced that the President’s desperation to shift the blame for this hardship on some middlemen only confirms failure to provide leadership. We find it strange that the President would admit failure to learn from lessons of history after having made similar accusations against the same class of people over the same issue 36 years ago.
“While President Buhari may be forgiven for certain shortcomings by reason of old age and poverty of ideas, Nigerians and indeed the whole world will never forgive him for refusing to learn from lessons of history.
“We therefore warn the authorities to note that Nigerians are quite aware of the demands of the office of the president which primarily include providing economic, financial, political, social and security safeguards to citizens irrespective of class or status,” he said.
