Princewill Demian
December 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The opposition Peoples Democratic Party has weighed in on the on-going scarcity of petrol in the country, even as it challenged President Muhammadu Buhari, as substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources, to find a quick solution to the lingering fuel scarcity now ravaging many parts of the country.
In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, on Friday, in Abuja, the PDP called on the President to stop punishing Nigerians with intractable fuel scarcity, especially during the Yuletide season.
According to the statement, it was wrong for the President to sit in his comfort zone and put the blames of the fuel scarcity at the doorsteps of marketers, while Nigerians continue to suffer untold hardship.
The statement said, “The unbearable fuel situation in the country is completely unacceptable. Mr. President must become up and doing. He should not allow anybody to push him to claim that the issue of fuel scarcity is not under the purview of the Minister of Petroleum Resources.
“When he took office as President of Nigeria and also as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, he was aware that the buck stops at his table.
“Nigerians must not be made to suffer especially at this time of the year when we have the Yuletide and New Year festivities, which come with a lot of activities,” it added.
It further noted that, “This is the same APC government that promised that it will make fuel available and affordable. Today, under their deceitful and corrupt watch, fuel has not only become extremely scarce, the price has also risen from where the PDP left it at N86.50k per litre to as high as N300 per litre and above.”
Ologbondiyan said that the effect of the current fuel crisis was already taking its toll on Nigerians, adding that prices of goods had gone beyond their reach.
He said, “The effect is that transport fares, running costs, prices of food, medicines and other basic needs have soared beyond the reach of Nigerians, who are now groaning heavily under the hardship of APC misrule.”
