Petrol Price Hike: Time for protests against Buhari govt – HURIWA tells Nigerians

 


Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has described as reprehensible the policy of hiking the rates of electricity supply and pump price of premium motor spirit simultaneously at a time that most Nigerians have lost their means of livelihood due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The rights group said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has ended up inflicting pains, penury and agony on a massive scale on Nigerians through the recent rash of anti-people actions and policy implementation.

HURIWA, in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and made available to newsmen on Thursday, said it was foolhardy for government to hike the purchasing prices of commodities when other nations of the World including even capitalist nation’s like the USA and UK are implementing different types of relief packages and funding aides to businesses in the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

HURIWA, therefore, called for protests by Nigerians to reject the alleged enslaving policies of the government.

The group says civil protests are necessary because all other organised trade unions and notable Civil Rights bodies may have been bribed to shut up or cajoled with threats of the Company and Allied Matters Act or may have skeletons in their pockets.

“Best bet is for Nigerians not to suffer and smile but to protest against these burdens imposed on the suffering and oppressed masses by the government which has transformed from a government that should govern to the new slave drivers,” the statement added.

“The oppressed masses should know that it is better to protest at the risks of arrest by the security forces than to be afraid, keep quiet and die in silence. Any government that has failed to provide funding assistance in this perilous period of health emergency but has instead chosen to overtax the people, has lost its legitimacy to govern.”

It was reported yesterday that the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC), announced an increment in the pump price of petrol.