Posted by Rowland Akin in press release on January 25, 2012
Nigerians were in the middle of the day, on January 1, 2012 confronted with an unprecedented and shocking increase in the price of petroleum products from N65 to N150 and in many areas more. This increase obviously will set the stage for a vicious round of price hike for food, transportation and in fact everything that touches the lives of Nigerians, thereby undermining their living standards and well being.
Nigerians are now left at the mercy of a few cabal called oil importers and, of course, the grossly inefficient and highly corrupt NNPC and its subsidiaries that will now seize this opportunity to continue to hike prices in the name of market forces. Every sane person in any clime would know that jerking petroleum prices such as happened with the January 1, 2011 ambush is abnormal, and for this reason should be condemned and rejected.
We are opposed to oil subsidy removal because it will increase hardships the citizens are already facing. We believe that there are cogent options and alternatives to the policy that could be implemented without inflicting punishment on the urban and rural poor and the vulnerable; the unemployed, women and children. We are also concerned that the policy did not follow due process, in terms of consultations with the citizens and the representatives of the people in the National Assembly. The policy is also not transparent because it left so many questions unanswered, such as: how come the government spent 1.3 trillion in 2011 alone to pay oil importers in the name of oil subsidy, whereas for the entire period 2003-2007, we have only used N300 million annually for the oil subsidy; and why the funds appropriated by the National Assembly for oil subsidy was overshot by more than four fold. The policy also lacks a single ingredient of good governance and democratic tenets.
Oil subsidy, to be sure, is only benefit the common people enjoyed from the government, compensating for bad roads, dilapidated social infrastructure and lack of adequate and regular power. It is inhuman, exposing the populace to further hardships when no effort is being done to ameliorate their deteriorating and debilitating living conditions. CAPP, as an organization connected to the grassroots and the communities knows the feelings of pains and anguish of our communities such an ill-conceived policy has wrought upon them. It is unacceptable that Nigerians are made to feel as if they exist only at the behest of those they put in leadership position in the first place.
By increasing the price of petroleum products in the name of subsidy removal without going after the corruption, the fraud and the misappropriation in the system showed that the government which has supposedly an elected one was not out to serve the interest of the of the citizens but those of a few cartel that now monopolize oil importation. By removing the oil subsidy against the wishes and aspiration of Nigerians across the board, including religious and political leaders and elders clearly demonstrated that the government t is fast transmuting into a dictatorship which must be resisted. Nigerians did not shed their precious blood under the military to flight for the enthronement of democracy only to be replaced by another version of a civilian dictatorship. By blatantly refusing to consult and dialogue with the citizens over this very sensitive issue the government has unwittingly broken the bond of trust and social contract with the citizens, which is unfortunate.
We strongly object and condemn in totality the use of brute force by the police and other security agencies on innocent citizens who have come out to legitimately voice out their objection against what they rightly considered as a bad, inconsiderate and obnoxious policy. We call on the authourities to stop forthwith trampling on the fundamental and constitutional rights of the citizens just because they want to force such a bitter pill down our throats.
We, therefore, demand that a high powered judicial panel be instituted to bring all those that violated people’s rights to justice. The callous killings of young protesters in Ilorin and in Kano leaves and sour taste in the mouth and must be probed; those security personnel involved must be sanctioned, only to demonstrate that we are not living in a jungle where might is right, and that human life is sacred. It is ironical that President Goodluck Jonathan that campaigned with the slogan that no political ambition is worth a single drop of human beings is now superintending a regime of police repression of the populace, including loss of precious human lives.
CAPP calls on all Nigerians to rise up and demonstrate absolute support to the ongoing struggle for the reversal of the prices of petroleum products to its original level of N65. CAPP wholeheartedly supports the call of CSOs, the trade unions and all well meaning Nigerians in the current fight against the clearly harsh and dangerous policy and avoid a drift of the country to anarchy and widespread misery. This fight for us is one that would rescue our communities and the ordinary people from further pauperization. It is also a struggle to rescue our country from agents of international finance whose only goal is to continue to enslave our nations and loot our God-given resources. Nigerians must rise to defend their rights and the fact that sovereignty belongs to the people, not some self-conceited agents of external powers masquerading as technocrats and economists. Nigerians citizens deserve a better deal from their leaders.
