By EMEKA MAMAH
The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, have decried the nation-wide scaricity of petrol and asked the Federal Government to remove the obstacles standing on the path of making petroleum products available to Nigerians.
The opposition ACN lashed out at the People's Democratic Party, PDP -led Federal Government for allegedly raising the price of petrol through the back door, saying that by creating artificial scarcity of the product, Nigerians were being forced to pay more than the official price.
National Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Alhaji Lai Mohammed made the accustion in a statement in Lagos yesterday.
Also, the ACF decried ''the severe shortage of petroleum products across the northern states with the dire consequencies on economic activities'' and urged the government to resolve the problem in favour of Nigerians, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Anthony Sani, shortly after the a meeting of the forum's Rapid Response Committee in Kaduna yesterday.
However, according to the ACN, the PDP resorted to raising the price of the commodity through the back door following the rejection of its ''anti-people policy of raising the price of petrol earlier this year.''
Describing the ''orchestrated scarcity'' of petrol which started several months ago as ''underhand tactics to increase the price,'' the party further said that the Federal Government's new method had forced Nigerians to pay more from ''N110 naira per litre in Lagos to as high as N130- N140 per litre elsewhere in the country,'' in the filling stations and far much higher than those prices at the black market.
Mohammed's statement read, ''For example, in the capital city of Abuja, 10 litres of fuel goes for N2,500 at the black market, representing N250 per litre. For motorists who are unable to withstand the painfully-long queues in the few filling stations selling the product, this is the only way to keep their vehicles running.
''By failing to clamp down on the filling stations selling at prices higher than the official rate (of N97), and by not ensuring the availability of the product nationwide, the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has simply rammed a price increase down the throats of Nigerians.
''This governance by deceit, a hallmark of the PDP-led Federal Government, is sure to make life more difficult for Nigerians, most of whom provide their own electricity through generators that are powered by petrol. The high fuel cost is also having a bandwagon effect on the cost of goods and services.''
Vanguard Nigeria
all this scarcity of a thing must stop sef
Does it mean the federal government is responsible for this?
that is what it is looking like nifemi
i say thank you to ACN and ACF.they spoke my mind