The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has requested President Muhammadu Buhari to further slash fuel pump price to N60 or N70.
Following the drop in the price of crude, fuel pump price had been dropped from N145 to about N125 per litre.
But the PDP called on the “All Progressives Congress (APC) and its Federal Government to slash the pump price of fuel to reflect the prevalent slump in the cost of crude oil and petroleum products in the international market.”
The PDP, in a statement on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, insisted that the APC and its government have no justifiable reason to continue to retain the pump price of fuel at N125 per liter despite the drastic crash in the international price of crude oil.
According to the PDP, given the prevalent international price, the appropriate price template for domestic pump price of fuel in Nigeria ought to be between N60 to N70 per liter, in response to the variables of international market forces.
The opposition party stressed that the APC government ought to have reduced the pump price, earlier in the year, to N90 per liter when crude oil price slumped to about $30 per barrel.
The party, therefore, wondered why Buhari’s government has continued with N125 per liter, even with the further fall in the price of crude oil price.
It berated the APC and cautioned it to stop fleecing Nigerians with inappropriate fuel price template, particularly at this time when the citizens are battling with the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, the PDP demanded that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) should waste no further time in recovering the proceeds of its alleged sleazy and over-bloated oil subsidy regime, which should also be channeled as palliatives to Nigerians.
“Nigerians can recall that the NNPC had, earlier in the month, confessed that the APC administration had, in the last five years, engaged in underhand subsidy deals, which included a hazy under-recovery for unnamed West African countries, running into trillions of naira, while Nigerians continued to bear the burden on unsubsidized fuel,” the party said.