Lingering Fuel Scarcity, Conspiracy Against Poor Masses – SPN
The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), at the weekend, condemned the lingering sale of petrol above the official pump price in Nigeria, describing it as a conspiracy among the ruling class against the poor masses.
The group’s secretary, Comrade Abiodun Bamgboye, in a statement in Ibadan, Oyo State, while condemning the scarcity, asked the working class and unions to, through their collective struggle, reclaim the oil industry from the full domination and control of a cabal.
The party lamented that if the oil sector was not taken over from the ruling class and cabals and placed “under a collective ownership and democratic management and control of workers and the poor masses, the enormous crisis that continues to bedevil the oil industry as well as other sectors of the economy will sooner or later resurface, even if the on-going fuel scarcity eventually subsides as promised by the Buhari-led government.
“The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), Oyo State branch, decries the lingering fuel scarcity and sale of petrol above official pump price arising from shortfall in supply and hoarding of petrol across the length and breadth of the country.
“This is a consequence of a conspiracy among members of the ruling class which include elected or appointed political office holders and their friends in The oil business obviously to make more profits and to create a wider atmosphere to continue the loot of the public treasury at the expense of the poor working but suffering masses in preparation for the 2019 general elections,” he said.
It added that it was unfortunate that “one year into office, the Buhari-led government increased the pump price of petrol from N87 to N145 in May 2016.
“The false impression was that the introduction of the over 100 per cent hike in pump price of petrol will permanently end the perennial crisis of hoarding, diversion and smuggling of petrol across the border so as to ensure adequate and sufficient supply of petrol across the country.
“Today, the situation is such a pathetic one, in the sense that the perennial crisis of long queues and fuel scarcity arising from hoarding of petrol has not only returned on the streets of most Nigerian cities, but also the pump price of petrol in most filling stations across the country now hovers between N180 and N300 per litre.
“ SPN condemns and rejects the lingering artificial fuel scarcity, criminal act of selling pump price of petrol beyond the standard price of N145 by the oil marketers as well as various forms of hardship the working people are undergoing,” it said.
The party stressed that, “at the same time, SPN maintains that the failure of the Buhari-led government like the preceded PDP-led governments to guarantee adequate supply of petrol to Nigerians has further showed that all of the age-long crisis that bedevilled the Nigeria oil sector cannot be resolved on the basis of neo-liberal policies of privatisation and deregulation of the oil industry.”
SPN maintained that it was “through the imposition of these two neoliberal policies by the successive governments, including the Buhari-led administration, that the ruling class succeeded in handing over the control of the entire oil sector (upstream and downstream) to tiny oil tycoons (international oil companies (IOCs), local oil industries, oil block owners, oil importers and marketers, ship owners and storage facilities owners etc.), who, in reality, only run the industry for the profit interest of the tiny cabal while the Nigeria government, through the NNigerian National Petroleum Co-operation (NNPC) only receive bonuses, royalty and taxes .“
