Story from Haruna USMAN, Birnin Kebbi
Youths under the aegis of Youth for Equity and Justice have vehemently rejected Federal Government’s plan to scrap Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF).
Arising from their executive meeting that was held in Birnin Kebbi, the state chairman Gadanga Haruna, said they moved the motion following developments regarding the issue, adding that, the FG decided to wrongly act on it.
The association resolved “that PEF’s primary responsibility is to maintain uniformity in PMS price and to regulate payments of subsidy which the government wants to remove completely”
“We want to state here that as a youth body, we have strongly condemned the removal of oil subsidy as it will only aggravate the suffering of Nigerians who are only enjoying the agitated oil subsidy.”
The group noted that the scary level of unemployment in the country cannot afford any scrapping adding that poverty and unemployment was already fuelling banditry in the country and scourge of unemployment has accelerated the level of suicide among Nigerian youth”.
Gadanga stated that the federal government has no reason to shift her failure to the staff of PEF who have little or no control of the nation’s petroleum industry.
The youth body wondered how a country that intends to go on full deregulation will scrap a regulatory body.
“We must warn the federal government to desist forthwith its plans to scrap any agency of government. As youth representatives, we will not allow the youth to be dumped by government. The federal government must retrace its steps by addressing her issues in the petroleum sector without having to scrap anything. We maintain our stand in opposing the scrapping of PEF and any other federal agency,” the chairman added.
