Our reporter/ As opposition continues over Tuesday’s increase in the pump price of petrol, Vice President Kashim Shettima has summoned the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, and Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari.
Also summoned on Thursday at the Presidential Villa is the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.
The Vice President is meeting with the trio in his office at the State House, Abuja.
NNPCL on Tuesday increased the pump price of petrol from ₦568 to ₦855, ₦897 (depending on the location per litre) amid lingering fuel scarcity and the country’s crisis.
Private suppliers already sold fuel at higher prices than the NNPCL. Some were selling at 1,200 naira per litre on Wednesday.
The price increase came a day after NNPC acknowledged it was struggling to maintain fuel supplies because of financial difficulties.
In Lagos, Abuja and the northern city of Kano on Wednesday, some private petrol stations were closed while huge lines of cars waited overnight outside NNPC fuel stations.
Several Nigerians and groups have condemned the NNPCL’s hike in fuel prices amid the hardship and economic realities the citizens face.
Among them is the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), arguing that the increment would compound the misery of Nigerians.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, condemned the fuel price hike and accused the government of betraying the labour movement.
He demanded an immediate reversal in the price of petrol.
“We demand the immediate reversal of the latest increase in the pump of PMS across the country, release of all those incarcerated or being prosecuted on the assumption of having participated in the recent protests,” Ajaero said.
Grossly Insensitive
The Minority Caucus of the House of Representatives has also vehemently condemned the recent announcement by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) to increase the price of petrol.
In a statement signed by the Minority Leader, Hon. Kingsley Chinda, on Thursday, the Reps Minority Caucus said this development is not only ill-timed but also grossly insensitive to the harsh economic conditions currently being experienced by Nigerians across the country.
The caucus called on the Federal Government to urgently intervene and reverse what it called unwarranted increase in petrol prices.
Also on Thursday, a professor of Political Economy, Pat Utomi, on Thursday called for the return of subsidy on petroleum products.
He made this call amid the scarcity of the essential commodity as well as a hike in the price of petrol.
“The first thing to do is to recognise essential things that Nigerians need fuel for. I will subsidise those things,” he said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“There will be a subsidy. The Americans have subsidy for Agriculture, it is a matter of where you direct it to.”
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