Date Published: 10/12/09

HURIWA calls for mass action over fuel hike

Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) is worried that the planned deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry scheduled to kick off by November 1 st 2009 will inevitably result in further deterioration of the living condition of a majority of Nigerians and has therefore called on the Nigeria labour congress and other progressive minded civil society organizations to organize mass action to protect the unpopular policy.

Specifically, the Group Executive Director, in charge of commercials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Mr. Aminu Babakusa had at the weekend confirmed the take-off date for deregulation of the down stream sector of the petroleum industry.

But Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, a development focused and pro-poor human rights platform in a statement by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko described the planned hike of pump price of premium motor spirit (Fuel) as ‘Satanic’ and anti-poor; and urged President Umaru Musa Yar’adua not to allow himself to go down in history as one political leader that imposed the most ‘excruciating’ and ‘poverty friendly’ economic policies meant to further impoverish the suffering populace many of whom are so unsure of the sources of their next meals so much so that hundreds of thousands of people are now dying of hunger, starvation and widespread poverty all across Nigeria.

HURIWA submitted that any further upward review or hike of the pump price of fuel in Nigeria will automatically affect the general cost of living in Nigeria, warned the Federal Government that further impoverishment of the civil populace could result to widespread social crime of armed robbery, kidnapping and will trigger mass exodus of Nigerians to other countries in search of better condition of living. HURIWA reminded Government that hundreds of thousands of Nigerians who left the country in the past because of the hardship in Nigeria are now living like slaves and refugees in their new countries of abode.

The Rights group faulted government’s explanation that deregulation will ensure that there will be no more shortages of supply in Nigeria and stated that the failure of successive administrations to maintain and standardize facilities in the four refineries in the country and the total lack of transparency and accountability of how the several Billions of tax payers’ money voted and released for turn around maintenance of the refineries were wantonly looted, stolen and stashed in the private accounts of top Government officials, is primarily responsible for the bad state of the few refineries in the country. It argued that fuel subsidy in any part of the world has never led to collapse of refineries but poor maintenance and corruption as is the case in Nigeria.

HURIWA argued that it is simply standing logic on it’s head for the current administration to tell Nigerians that we have to pay more for fuel derivable from the abundant crude oil deposits that God endowed Nigeria with even when citizens of countries where crude oil is not found pay far cheaper for the same product.

The Rights group also faulted the federal government’s claim that it is only by hiking the pump price of premium motor spirit that scarcity will disappear because it is illogical and unacceptable just as the group asserted that deregulation as currently proposed in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry will mean that Government has abandoned Nigerians to their fate and is a violation of section 14(2) (b) of the 1999 constitution which provides that the welfare of the citizens is the primary responsibility of government.

HURIWA urged the Federal government and the anti-graft agencies to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of several Billions of tax payer’s money voted and released for turn-around-maintenance of the existing refineries in the country which are now in a total state of disrepair.

According to it: “until we know those who looted the huge funds released for the maintenance of the existing refineries and these same enemies of the people are prosecuted, it will be preposterous for the federal Government to seek to impose the proposed harsh increase in pump price of fuel. We are hopeful that the decision will be challenged by the civil society because of the adverse economic consequences it will unleash on millions of Nigerians who are already living below the extreme poverty index.”