Knocks For FG Over Petrol Price, Electricity Tariff Hike

The Federal Government on Sunday came under more criticism for the increase in electricity tariff and petrol pump price last week.

The Centre for Democracy and Development and the Civil Liberties Organisation condemned the government’s actions, saying many Nigerians would be hard hit.

The CDD, a civil rights movement, expressed its support for citizens’ resistance against all anti-people policies, using all constitutional options, including peaceful mass protests and litigation.

The organisation, in a statement by its Director, Idayat Hassan, on Sunday, regretted that at a time when governments around the world were enacting policies and putting in place measures to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizens, “the Nigerian government has chosen to do the direct opposite.”

According to Hassan, the CDD is convinced that the government should have found other creative, sustainable and logical pathways to address the issues which necessitated the price hikes.

The group said, “The resort to the policy of hiking the prices of essential commodities and services points to the absence of the political will to fulfil the promises made to the Nigerian people while this President was on the campaign trail in 2015 and 2019.

“In all of these cases, the Federal Government has failed to act to ease the pains of long-suffering citizens. Its decision to inflict further hardships on the people by hiking electricity tariffs should get an appropriate response from millions of Nigerians whose well-being has been further imperilled.”

The Chairman, CLO, Rivers State, Sotonye George, said on Sunday in Port Harcourt that poor Nigerians would be the worst hit by the effects of electricity tariff and fuel price hikes.