Give Palliatives Before Fuel Subsidy Removal, FG Told

The Progressive Action Congress (PAC) has urged the Federal Government to provide palliatives before the removal of fuel subsidy.

In a telephone interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday, the National Chairman of PAC, Chief Charles Nwodo, suggested that the government should tackle all problems associated with fuel subsidy removal in a transparent manner for the sake of present and future generations.

Nwodo noted that the present state of the economy where corruption and mismanagement were prevalent had put the nation’s economy under serious dilemma.

According to him, deregulation historically emanated out of government’s inability to maintain the nation’s refineries and build new ones to meet up with the target of the growing population.

“It is most unfortunate that when our production capacity in oil is increasing geometrically and the market price is highly favourable that we are facing financial problems.

“The fear of deregulation is centred on past experience of ordinary fuel increase which in the past triggered high transport fares and food prices to the detriment of the masses,” he said.

The party chieftain noted that the withdrawal of oil subsidy would likely cause more hardship for the citizens who, he said, were already in distress.

“What will be the fate of the unemployed who cannot afford to transport themselves from one place to another and the underemployed whose salaries cannot fend for them and their families?

“Our fear is that the country may face worse violence than what it is today, we call on the government to first extend its hands of fellowship to the poor before the removal of the subsidy.”