From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
A civil society group, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), has blamed the Buhari administration for inflicting more pains on the Nigerians with frequent fuel price hikes.
The group, in a communique issued at the end of the National Executive Committee meeting held at the weekend, described the increase in fuel price without formal announcement as ‘anti-people policies and an insensitive step’ by those in authority.
The communique signed by the National President, Osagie Obayuwana, and made available to newsmen in Benin City, demanded an immediate reversal of the increase in fuel price, noting that there is no justification for the increase as other than the quest for profit maximisation by those who control the nation’s economy.
Obayuwana, a former Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General of Edo State, condemned the increase in the pump price of petrol without taking into consideration the adverse effects it would have on the standard of living of the average Nigerian family.
‘It is doubly tragic that this increase comes simultaneously with another hike in the tariff payable for electricity. The logic of passing the so-called increase in the cost of production on to consumers is unacceptable as same is a recipe for perpetual pauperisation,’ he said.
‘We condemn the indifference to and connivance of the Buhari government as these anti-people measures weigh down and crush the masses of our people.’
He observed that Nigeria under Buhari’s leadership cannot meet the fundamental purpose for which it was established to uphold the security and welfare of the Nigerian people.
According to him, CDHR agrees with the National Assembly that no other evidence is required in proof that the Nigerian states under President Muhammadu Buhari has not only failed but has shown through a combination of lacklustre performance characterised by incompetence and indifference.
On the issue of ethnic tensions, he said: ‘Buhari has through appointments and body language encouraged the thinking that his tenure is to promote the ethnic hegemony of the Fulani stock.
‘President Buhari, being an owner of herds of cattle himself, obviously cannot rise above his entanglement in a conflict of interest in the Herdsmen/Farmers faceoff,’ he added.