***Demands pricing template also
The All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government has been challenged to publish the landing cost of petrol as well as the pricing template being used by the government to keep the cost of petrol at less than N640 per litre.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu gave the charge in a statement while reacting to a press release by the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka.
Shaibu indicated that the government’s claim that the petroleum sector had been deregulated was a fat lie and that subsidy was still being paid.
He added, “The Petroleum Industry Act mandates the total deregulation of the petroleum sector. A deregulated regime has no room for price control. If the APC is saying subsidy is not back, they should explain how petrol is still being sold at less than N650 per litre when the international price of crude oil is about $94 per barrel and the exchange rate on the I&E Window is N780/$1 and N1,000/$1 on the parallel market.
“How is it that diesel which has been deregulated currently costs about N1,000 per litre while petrol is over 25% less? Let the APC explain and stop peddling lies.”
Shaibu said the APC-led government had continually admitted failure by going ahead to sack and detain some of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointees.
He said, “The same APC that praised Godwin Emefiele for eight years and deceived Nigerians with propaganda and their so-called agricultural revolution have gone ahead to sack the same Emefiele and detain him for four months.
“The same APC that claimed to have fought corruption have now gone ahead to detain the man in charge of the anti-corruption war, Abdulrasheed Bawa, for four months. You can see that these people are nothing but barefaced liars and deceivers.
“Tinubu claimed he wanted to cut the cost of governance and yet appointed 48 ministers out of which 10 are from his region. Yet the APC claims he is running a fair administration. This is laughable. Adams Oshiomhole even said last month that Tinubu inherited a bad situation. How can a maggot criticise the fly that gave birth to it?”
Atiku’s aide asked the APC to do more on governance rather than propaganda, adding that the patience of Nigerians was already running out.
“Wale Edun said recently that the last time Nigeria’s economy did well was 10 years ago. That is an admission of the failure that the APC represents. Under the watch of that blood-sucking party, poverty has reached unimaginable heights. Nigeria has even lost its crown as the largest producer of oil in Africa. What a shame,” Shaibu said.
He said Tinubu ought to apologise to Nigerians for lying about a proposed meeting with United States President Joe Biden instead of trying to offer lame excuses.
“So, a three-minute ‘meet and greet’ on the sidelines of the G20 summit in India is what the APC is now describing as a ‘meeting of Biden and Tinubu’? This is indeed shameful. The statement from the Presidency said the meeting would take place on the sidelines of UNGA in New York.
“It is obvious the so-called meeting only existed in the minds of Tinubu and his paid writers. He left UNGA empty-handed and travelled to Paris without even informing Nigerians of his whereabouts. What a joke.”