The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), North-Central zone, students wing of the North-Central Youth Association, including other civil society groups, have issued a 28-day ultimatum to President Muhammadu Buhari, warning against any hike in the prices of petroleum products.
They said there would be dire consequences, while describing the Federal and State governments as failures.
The groups issued the warning on Saturday after a one-day stakeholders meeting held in Minna, Niger State capital.
The group vowed to resist any attempt by the government to go ahead with the planned increase in the price of petrol.
The groups, in a communique read at the end of the meeting by its North-Central coordinator, Comrade Mohammed Mohammed, averred that increase in petroleum products’ prices would further worsen the sufferings of Nigerians, saying that such an action will “amount to sending a majority of Nigerians to their early graves, especially those in Northern Nigeria who are already on ‘life support machine’ due to the current hardship.”
According to the groups, the planned increase in the pump price of petroleum products is a clear indication that “Nigeria’s current leadership appears incapable or unwilling to lead the people out of their multiple economic, social and security challenges.
“The current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and all the 36 State governors of the Federation, including the Federal Capital Territory administration, have failed totally in the major areas of providing security and protect lives and properties of the citizens and ensuring a secured economic environment for growth and development of the country,” the groups stated, adding that the reasons given by the government for the planned increase in fuel price “are traceable only to inept and insensitive leadership at the national and state levels.”
The groups said it would begin a campaign to sensitise Northern societies and groups to support “a sustained resistance to force the government to immediately rescind the implementation of this unpopular, corrupt and inhuman policy or risk an unprecedented mass action and civil disobedience,” labelling government’s promise of N5,000 palliative to 40 million vulnerable Nigerians to cushion effects of subsidy removal as “unfounded lies, unwarranted, fake, impracticable, ill-intended and unacceptably disgusting.”
The groups further said that “the plan to hike the fuel price in the face of the ongoing intractable challenges to security of life and property in the country, especially in the North, represents an act of hostility against the people by the leaders who have the responsibility to protect them.”
– Media Report