… Says APC Convention Amid Power Outage, Fuel Scarcity Shameful  

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), on Friday, decry the twin monster of power outage and fuel scarcity that have crippled many businesses in the first quarter of 2022, urging President Muhammadu Buhari to fire himself as Minister of Petroleum Resources and sack the Minister of Power.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said it was pathetic that the Federal Government led by President Buhari and his ministers gathered in Abuja for the All Progressives Congress (APC) convention while ordinary Nigerians suffer perpetually due to erratic power supply and unending collapse of national grid as well as fuel scarcity.

The group also said it was very unfortunate that all university students are at home for over six weeks as a result of the strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities due to the failure of the Federal Government to accede to the demands of the striking lecturers while government officials send their wards to study overseas with taxpayers’ money.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “It is alarming that the persistent twin social evils of fuel scarcity and erratic electricity power shortage has crippled hundreds of thousands of businesses in the country with the attendant joblessness, high crime rates, hunger, starvation afflicting millions of Nigerians as a result of this fundamental display of profound ineptitude and inefficiency by the Federal Government. 

“The fact that the fuel crisis has been allowed to fester shows either that the APC Federal Government instigated the fuel scarcity to breed the virus of street urchins who are largely from either Niger Republic or Kano State and who are the main agents selling fuel in jerry cans especially in the FCT. These same thugs voted for APC in Kano, Zaria, Sokoto. 

“Is it that the APC government wants to reward the political thugs that the party used to thumbprint ballots in many northern states during the 2019 poll or that the Federal Government lacks what it takes to put to an end the biting scarcity or that the Federal Government wants Nigerians to react so it can call out troops to kill as many as possible? 

“Why is the President not stepping down as petroleum minister and then appoint a substantive senior petroleum minister from the pull of some of the finest petroleum Engineers of Nigerian origin working in the advanced societies and locally because this  over one-month fuel scarcity that started with the flooding of toxic fuel is a gross failure on the part of the senior minister of petroleum who is also the president which is absurd? 

“Also, why is the President not sacking the minister of power who has nothing innovative to offer to improve electricity power supply since coming on board? Is the President happy that university students are at home?

“Is APC not ashamed that it is holding a national convention and millions of motorists are stranded in filling stations looking for fuel that the dealers distribute to thugs who sell them in the black market?

“The APC should have shame and stop the economic woes.

“Mr. President please sack yourself as Minister Of Petroleum, sack your grossly incompetent Minister Of Power please. Save Nigeria from becoming a basket case Mr. President”, the statement concluded.