Monday, June 12 is Nigeria’s Democracy Day, but for some 120 civil society organisations have designated the day for protest against fuel price increases.
Also, they are seeking probe into the fraudulent management of the petrol subsidies since inception.
President Bola Tinubu announced the elimination of the subsidies and since then, a lot has changed about the standard of living in Nigeria.
The organisations claimed to have seen firsthand the suffering and chaos that the change of the price and burden of the bogus subsidy scheme had caused for common Nigerians.
A statement by the groups read: “The coalition directed all its affiliates, allies, and stakeholders in the 36 states and Abuja, to collaboratively mobilise for the June 12 Citizens Mass Protests, and to undertake dynamic protest actions and demonstrations, during their June 12 commemorative events that are in tandem with their peculiar environment, in compelling the Tinubu’s government to stem its foisted economic and political crisis in the country”.
The groups said that factual data demonstrated that the expense of governance and the privileges of certain elites in the nation were mostly to blame for the difficulties in the Nigerian economy in a statement that was signed by the Head of the Secretariat of the National Coordinating Centre, Olawale Okunniyi.
The Fight For Better Living
According to Okunniyi, the groups made the decision to organise and “lead the collective intervention”.
This will help stop the subsidy reduction from turning into another way to further cripple the country’s economy while depriving the poor of their rights.
He added that the leaders, at their meeting, had also consensually agreed that all forms of “phantom subsidies” must be removed, adding that “targeting just the fuel subsidy is anti-people”.
“The coalition has decided to mobilise and lead the collective intervention of Nigerian citizens, youths and the masses to ensure that the elite consensus to remove the fraudulent fuel subsidy in Nigeria, does not become another opening for state finance cartel to manipulate and exploit the subsidy removal policy, to further dis-empower and pauperise the vulnerable and poor in Nigeria, in order not to plunge the vast majority of Nigerians into deeper economic crises, crimes and insecurity.
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“Since there seems to be a national elite consensus that the fraudulent contraption called fuel subsidy should be removed, it is therefore obvious that all other subsidy regimes in Nigeria are plagued with the same disease of corruption and official mismanagement. Targeting just the fuel subsidy is anti-people. All corrupt/phantom subsidies must be removed.”
Okunniyi also stated that the group would compile and generate citizen concerns regarding the $800 million World Bank loan that the Buhari administration has secured.
They will also capture people’s concern on how the money will be used.
Furthermore, the groups will document concerns about whether or not the Nigerian National Petroleum Commission Limited will “remain as an arm of government, and its true powers in the context of Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, its holistic implementation, and the pricing of PMS in Nigeria”.
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