Honourable Bello Kazeem Olalekan,PDP Chieftain in Oyo State and Governing Council Member,Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology has totally condemned the recent hike in electricity tariff and pump price of petrol in Nigeria.
In a statement he personally signed on Friday,he described the move as ill-times and ill-motivated which will make life harder and unbearable for majority of Nigerians.
Hon Olalekan said the actions by Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC are “anti masses policy by an incompetent APC led administration”.
He said, “While Nigerians are still dealing with the negative effects of COVID 19 Pandemic which has made life tougher and harder for many people, rendering many jobless and finding it hard to have their daily meals, all the government could do is to increase in fuel and electricity prices respectively”.
“A responsible government should be concerned about easing the pains and burdens of her citizens not adding more to it but unfortunately, reverse is the situation in our nation since the cost of a bag of rice for instance, had skyrocket to N28,000 from N8,500; bag of maize to N21,000 from N3,000 and fertilizer to N12,000 from N2,500, Dollar exchange rate has risen to N480 from N195; ECA to $2.5bn from $72m; external debt to $27bn from $9.6bn.
While Crimes, insurgency and banditry; armed robbery and kidnappings; rampant rapes and sexual abuses, smuggling and corruption; poverty, hunger and destitution; IDPs; unemployment and school dropouts have thus escalated to totally unacceptable proportions and now the order of the day.
He further stated that the act of federal government is misguided and uncalled for at this particular period when international community are busy cushioning the effect of covid 19.The position of the federal government demonstrate the level of insincerity and Nigerians should take note of how APC led government by General Mohammadu Buhari deceived us.
However, Hon Olalekan Bello urged the federal government to revert the decision immediately in the best interest of the people with immediate effect and take as priority, giving people succor in the hard times and tackling the insecurity in the nation.
