After the Federal Government’s serial denials of resuming petrol subsidy payments, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, NNPCL, early last week admitted coming under “a financial strain” as it owed billions of dollars to fuel marketers. On Wednesday last week, it was all over the news that the company had hiked the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, from N617 to N890.

In spite of this, many petrol stations throughout the country remained shut as marketers were not getting supplies from the NNPCL. Despite buyers spending hours in lengthy queues, petrol sold from N900 to as much as N1,300 in parts of the country. With this development, Nigerians have had to pay extra N800 or more for a litre of petrol since President Bola Tinubu assumed power 15 months ago.

As expected, major economic stakeholders, such as the Manufacturing Association of Nigerian, MAN; National Associations of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, NACCIMA; Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI; National Employers Consultative Association, NECA; Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC; Trade Unions Congress, TUC; National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS; Afenifere; Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; and others, have vehemently reacted on behalf of Nigerians.

As usual, Federal Government organs engaged in their usual game of denials and recriminations which always eventually ends up with the burden of government policy cluelessness and deception effectively transferred to the already overburdened masses.

As is usual of the Tinubu regime, the impending heavy load of extra N270 per litre petrol price hike is simultaneously being accompanied with the government’s intention to raise the Value-Added Tax, VAT, from N7.5 to 10 per cent. The government’s withdrawal of subsidy jerked petrol pump price from N180 to N617 in May 2023, with the withdrawal of electricity subsidy added in March this year.

These measures led to the 10-day #EndBadGovernance protests last month. The addition of more price hikes will surely increase the hunger, poverty, job losses, business closures and insecurity. Government has refused to hearken to the wailing and gnashing of teeth among the people. Instead, it is adding more salt to our injuries.

We urge the Tinubu regime to abandon its IMF/World Bank prescriptions of anti-people policies to prevent a spontaneous social explosion. All the refineries that have been completed should immediately be allocated with subsidised crude oil to be refined for domestic consumption.

Also, the Federal Government must end fuel importation forthwith because we now have excess refining capacity if the industry is properly run. We can satisfy the domestic market and even refine for export.

The buck is on President Tinubu’s table to sanitise our oil industry to make it beneficial to the ordinary Nigerian. Anything less than that is failure of leadership.

We have had more than enough!