The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the Federal Government to further reduce petrol pump price to N70 per litre.
The government had embarked on phased price reduction in the last few months -from N145 to N125 then N121 on Tuesday.
But the PDP, in a statement on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said the government has been fleecing Nigerians with high fuel price.
The party charged the government to immediately reduce the pump price to N70 per litre, to reflect the appropriate pricing template following the fall in the price of crude oil in the international market.
“The PDP completely rejects the N121 per litre price announced by the Federal Government, which has even remained unenforced,” it stated.
The main opposition party described the new price as announced by the government, as highly provocative and a further display of insensitivity to the plight of Nigerians, “particularly as they battle the social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic”.
The PDP insisted that a N121 per litre price amounted to fleecing Nigerians of over N50 per litreof fuel.
“This is in continuation of the N55 per litre overcharge, which Nigerians had borne under the inappropriate N125 per liter, which prevailed for months, before it was brought down to N123.50 per litre, in spite of the crash in international price of crude oil.
“The PDP rejects the unnecessary price pinching and demands that the Federal Government, should without further delay, implement the appropriate price as well as declare and account for the billions of naira accruable as overcharge since the crash in crude oil price”, the party said.
The PDP said failure to reduce the pump price to N70, as well as the non-declaration of the alleged overcharge would not be acceptable to Nigerians, “as it only points to questions of corruption in the system”.
The party insisted that the government had no justification to retain the pump price of fuel at over N70 per liter.
It challenged the administration to justify its actions by publishing the prevailing landing cost, depot cost, trucking cost as well as the retail outlet administrative cost and show why the pump price should be above N70 per liter.
The party urged the National Assembly to protect the interest of the people by prevailing on the government to implement the appropriate fuel pricing and account for the excess charges.