By Charles Kumolu
THE Ijaw Peoples Congress, IPC, has flayed opponents of the removal of fuel subsidy urging Nigerians to give the initiative a trial.

According to its National President, Mr. Ekanpou Enewaridideke said rather than oppose the policy, the Federal government should be commended adding that the policy was in the best interest of Nigerians.

His words: “We hereby call on all Nigerians to support the fuel subsidy removal because it is in the best interest of the country. By this policy approach,President Goodluck Jonathan should be commended because the present hardship occasioned by the subsidy removal is a mere temporary sacrifice we have to bear in order to appropriate the resultant benefits in the nearest future.”

While he called on Nigerians to ignore the strike action called by labour and other civil organisations, he said the strike was ill-conceived.

He said “we are calling on Nigerians to ignore the directionless, baseless, tendentious  mass protest\strike proposed and masterminded by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC  because it is ill-conceived and it is economically a departure from the reality on the ground.”

In addition, he appealed to the NLC, to “immediately jettison its proposed strike and embrace the fuel subsidy removal because Nigerians have been sensitised on the benefits of the policy.”

Besides, he enjoined opponents of the subsidy removal to stop “the sensationalisation of the subsidy removal because there is nothing absolutely evil and condemnable about it as any policy of government characteristically has its own temporary biting side and this is the reality presented by the recent fuel subsidy removal.”

“We hereby condemn the proposed NLC strike as a misconceived rabble-rousing move by the body to create unnecessary distraction and historically create a falsehood that they are on the side of the masses. NLC does show by the proposed strike that they do not have the interest of Nigerians at heart and that this time Nigerians should not be misled by NLC into absurd nationwide strike”, he stated.