By Kingston Magare
The politics of petrol price increase is refusing to go away as Nigerians continue to bear the brunt of hikes in price of the commodity. The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) said Monday President Bola Tinubu has kept a studied silence because his cronies benefit from the high costs.
HURIWA noted that the Nigerian masses are not taken into consideration, and the government was not ready to alleviate their plight.
“The truth and nothing but the truth is that the policy of incessantly hiking the pump price of fuel and petroleum products were never meant to benefit the commoners of Nigeria,” said HURIWA in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko
“The primary goal is to financially reward friends of those holding sway in the current administration, their cronies or business affiliates.
“The hikes in the costs of fuel have only brought instability in the prices of essential food items and the inability of millions of absolutely poor households in Nigeria to buy their essential food items, has resulted in malnutrition of hundreds of thousands of children, mass hunger, increasing number of out-of-school children, and starvation and untimely deaths.
“Whereas most poor Nigerians perish in unmitigated poverty and unpredictable high costs of living, only very few people running businesses in the oil and gas sector are making a kill by way of profits as data and statistics made available at the weekend have shown this irrefutable fact.”
HURIWA also backed the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), which recently alleged that Dangote Refinery and other fuel marketers are colluding to artificially inflate fuel prices.
The rights group urged the Nigerian government to immediately activate the Port Harcourt Refinery and other government-owned refineries.
According to HURIWA, data from Nigeria’s oil sector shows that six oil and gas companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) earned a combined ₦2.97 trillion in revenue over the past nine months—up 115% from ₦1.39 trillion in the same period last year.
Profits before tax surged to ₦626.3 billion, marking an increase of 384% from ₦129.43 billion in 2023.
In closing, HURIWA called on the government to end policies that worsen poverty for the majority while enriching a select few.
“The Federal Government must stop implementing crude measures that unleash hardships on Nigerians whilst at the same time making very few people and companies too rich and prosperous from the hunger, starvation and untimely deaths of Nigerians,” HURIWA added.
“Government must restore the dignity and the respectable value of the Naira to stop the downward collapse of the value of the National currency,” the association asserted.
