Northern groups flay FG over planned fuel subsidy removal

Rising from its meeting in Gombe Wednesday, the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), North-east chapter, has condemned in strong terms, the planned removal of fuel subsidy by the federal government.

The groups described the planned action as “unpopular, corrupt and inhuman policy” that would drench Nigerians and the people of the North-east further into poverty.

The groups said the planned hike in the price of fuel from its current price of N165 to N340 represents acts of hostility against the people by leaders who have responsibility to protect them.

Reading the communiqué on behalf of the group, Mr Abubakar Umar Bitako, the Taraba state coordinator, CNG, said the group had resolved to give the federal government four weeks to rescind the implementation of the policy or risk an “unprecedented mass action and civil disobedience.”

The groups said the promise of N5, 000 to 40 million Nigerians after subsidy removal was “unfounded lies, unwarranted, fake, impracticable, well-intended and unacceptably disgusting.

“We will join the call on all northerners to prepare to take their destiny in their hands to deal with all their challenges, including those which seek to deepen their current insecurity and economic impotence and to marshal all resources towards forcing a reverse of the current trend towards the region’s destruction or permanent incapacitation.”

The groups also stated that it would hold President Muhammadu Buhari and all the governors in the country responsible for the combined effect of widespread threats to security.