Ahead of Nigeria’s 2019 general elections, the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has intensified his electioneering campaign, this time by talking about his plans to drastically reduce the price of petrol.
A statement released yesterday by Mr Atiku’s political party said the presidential hopeful intends to reduce fuel price to at most N90 per litre.
According to the statement, this is something the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari and his administration has failed to do due to their “insensitivity” to Nigerians.
Fuel Pump Price: Our Presidential candidate, @atiku, has worked out a pricing template that will immediately crash the pump price of fuel in the country, since the @MBuhari -led @OfficialAPCNg administration, in its insensitivity, has failed to do the needful in the last 3 years. pic.twitter.com/RSWn3YqwPx
— Official PDP Nigeria (@OfficialPDPNig) November 1, 2018
Furthermore, the PDP disclosed that it has met with some major global stakeholders in the oil industry who informed that the official pump price for fuel should be between N87 and N90, especially with an oil subsidy in place.
In the same vein, the opposition party said it has rejected the increase in the official pump prices of kerosene and diesel, two equally essential commodities which most private Nigerians and companies depend on for electricity generation.
Note that Nigerians currently spend N145 to purchase a litre of fuel which, by the way, is an essential commodity. This amount is almost double the N87 mark the product was priced back in 2015 when the present administration took over power.
“with the current price template of crude oil in the international market, the Buhari Administration has no justification to keep the pump price of fuel at N145 per litre and watch Nigerians groan under the weight of high prices, while a cabal at the presidency loot the funds meant to subsidise the product.” -PDP
The party made serious accusations…
Meanwhile, the People’s Democratic Party, in the statement, went further to accuse the President Buhari-led Government of diverting the sum of N58 out of every N145 Nigerians pays per litre of fuel.
This money remains unaccounted for, even as the Government has failed to “account for the over N1.4 trillion allegedly syphoned through sleazy oil subsidy deals,” the statement said.
The statement concluded by saying that Nigerians would never have to be subjected to Buhari’s Government were they lack transparency in their dealings. Now, Atikunomics is supposedly here to offer the solution that will work once and for all.
In the meantime, Mr Abubakar’s economic plans for Nigeria are completely dependent on whether he ever gets the opportunity to be president. He knows this, which is why he is using every means possible to sway the votes in his favour come early 2019.
