Alhaji Balarabe Musa

Eromosele Ebhomele

As Nigeria’s fuel situation continues to bite very hard and the government battles to convince Nigerians for support, the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, CNPP, has warned that it would lead a protest to make government realise Nigerians are truly suffering.

The CNPP is giving the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, a maximum of seven days within which to end the fuel scarcity or face the wrath of civil society which the CNPP hopes to lead to occupy the government-owned oil agency.

It warned that at the end of the ultimatum, it would mobilise the organised labour, civil society groups and the masses to occupy the NNPC until the substantive Minister and Minister of State resigns the positions.

In a statement jointly issued in Abuja by its National Chairman, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, and the Secretary-General, Chief Willy Ezugwu, the group maintained that “both the Minister and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources have shown a track record of undeniable and monumental ineptitude in resolving the problems associated with Fuel Scarcity in the last 11 months.

“While the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has kept double talking on the issue, the Minister and President Muhammadu Buhari on his part has maintained relative silence.

“About seven months ago, Kachikwu had confessed: ‘Personally, I will have chosen to sell the refineries, but President Buhari has instructed that they should be fixed. After they are fixed, if they still operate below 60 per cent, then we will know what to do’.

“A 90-day presidential ultimatum for the refineries to be fixed ended in December and the deadline was not met.

“In the same vein, the government set April 7 deadline to end the fuel queues being experienced across the country, again, the deadline was not meet.

“After blaming some people who rather than sell products send them into hinterlands where they can sell at ridiculous prices to make quick returns on their investments wrongly, the Ministry few days ago blamed the scarcity on 30 percent of supply allegedly diverted outside Nigeria.

“The government should be reminded that it has all the security apparatus and personnel to tract the saboteurs and bring them to justice.

“Enough of all the blame games and lack of will to tell Nigerians the truth about the lingering fuel scarcity. If by the end of seven days, and the situation is not addressed, the CNPP shall have no choice but to lead the organised labour, coalition of civil society groups and the Nigerian masses to occupy NNPC until the minister and minister of state resign their positions in the Ministry.”