Adams Oshiohmole, a former governor of Edo State, has bemoaned the lack of petrol and the increase in the cost of the product at the pump, stating that he recently paid N1,000 for a litre.
Queues at filling stations have returned in numerous regions of Nigeria, with many customers paying N500 and more or more for a litre of the commodity.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain claimed he recently purchased the goods at a high price during one of his campaign tours, suggesting that other people are also impacted by the crisis.
“On one occasion, I ran out of fuel and I had to pay N1,000 for a litre. Now, that is not funny! Somebody is responsible for that,” he said when he featured on Channels Television’s election programme The 2023 Verdict on Sunday.
A ‘Perennial Problem’
The former national chairman of the APC said in spite of the huge resources Nigeria spends on payment of fuel subsidy, the product is still scarce and the price is beyond the reach of most Nigerians.
“As we speak, we are spending almost N7 trillion. The minister of finance spoke to the fact that we are spending about N7 trillion for fuel subsidy and yet most Nigerians found themselves paying much more than what the market rate would be and yet we have the Petroleum Equalisation Fund,” Oshiomhole added. “So, people are responsible for this.”
He said fuel scarcity is not peculiar to President Muhammadu Buhari’s government, describing the development as a “perennial problem”.
“But that does not make it acceptable,” he said.
Oshiomhole, who equally spoke about the naira note redesign and swap policy, described them as deceptive and a ploy to truncate the elections.
“You could see that the intention of the Bank is not to eliminate abuses but to stop the elections from taking place,” he said.
