The House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) has called for the reversal of fuel prices to what it was, calling on the Federal Government and Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd. (NNPCL) to comply.
The committee, in a statement signed and released in Abuja, by Rep. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, Chairman of the committee, described the increase in the pump price of petrol as unacceptable.
He said a situation where private corporations took advantage of system weaknesses to make arbitrary profits at the expense of Nigerians was not good for the prosperity of the country.
“We call on the Federal Government and, of course, the NNPCL to take Nigerians’ plight into consideration and jettison this recent increase in pump price,” he said while briefing journalists.
Nigerians, he said, were presently facing many issues.
“Let us revert to the old pump price as soon as possible, and probably intensify engagements with major stakeholders to address the problem,” he said.
Doguwa, who also chairs the Special Committee on Crude Oil Theft and Pipeline Vandalism, assured that the issue of the loss which the government was suffering in terms of its revenues due to crude oil theft would be addressed.
“As an ad hoc committee, we are going to pursue vigorously modalities to interface with the youths and community leaders in the oil-producing areas,” he said.
According to him, this was done in the face of regular happenings of crude oil theft which threatened to paralyze the supply of petrol in the country.
“We liaise with the security agencies to secure oil pipelines and other key national facilities across the country.
“We believe this will calm frayed nerves, thus enabling Nigerians to go about their daily activities with ease,” the minister said.
The senator also called on Nigerians to give the administration of President Bola Tinubu a chance to reposition the oil and gas sector.
He said this, with collaboration between the Petroleum Industry Act and efforts to restore the nation’s refineries, was reassuring that quite soon Nigeria will start reaping the benefit accruing from her oil and gas reserves.
“We strongly believe that with interventions the government is making to commence operations at Port Harcourt and Warri refineries, these challenges will end,” he stated.
The NNPC Ltd, according to NAN, ordered its fuel sales outlets on Tuesday to push up pump prices from the average of N617 to N897 per litre thereby escalating costs in sundry markets including transportation.
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