Nigerians woke up on Tuesday to realise that the prices of premium motor spirit (PMS), commonly known as petrol, had been adjusted at fuel stations across the country as hardship over the removal of petroleum subsidy lingers.
Development Diaries reports that filling stations, including those of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPCL) Limited, now sell the product between N565 and 617.
It is understood that the price of the product was hiked by NNPCL and other oil marketers across the country.
The National President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Chinedu Okoronkwo, blamed the sudden hike on the cost of dollars.
This development has got many Nigerians fuming, with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) lambasting the President Bola Tinubu-led government over the increment.
In fact, a video showing two men in a taxi trading insults over what one of them blamed on frustration due to the current hardship has gone viral on social media.
Meanwhile, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has argued that the NNPCL lacks constitutional powers to fix pump prices of petrol.
Falana, in a statement released in his capacity as the Chairman of the Alliance on Surviving Covid-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), said the prices of petrol should be fixed by market forces, adding that ‘the increase of the pump price of petrol by NNPCL is an affront to the rule of law on the ground that it is illegal in every material in particular’.
As transport fares and prices of essential goods and services continue to shoot up significantly across the country, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced that Nigeria’s annual inflation rate rose to 22.79 percent in June from 22.41 percent in the previous month.
One must also note that the nonprofit sector is also feeling the heat of the turn in the economy, with development expert, Oluseyi Oyebisi, in a Facebook post, calling for government intervention in the sector, too.
He wrote, ‘There is no way nonprofit salaries can keep pace with the increasing energy bills, cost of living and inflation. There has to be a shift. Tough decisions will have to be made.
‘Whatever support is given to sub-national governments and businesses to cushion the effects (at the end of the day) must be extended to nonprofits as well. It is the right thing to do’!
It is common knowledge that the Nigerian government always assures the citizens that they should suffer temporarily for future gains. But do citizens later get to experience a better future?
Development Diaries calls on President Tinubu to take immediate actions that will directly reduce the impact of the increase in fuel price on the people, particularly vulnerable Nigerians.
The president, governors and other elected officeholders must set an example by taking deliberate steps to reduce the cost of governance, beginning by trimming down the number of government appointees and aides.
