Why Allison Madueke Lied About Fuel Subsidy

From available facts, there’s an ongoing scheme by those in position of authority in Nigeria (especially the executive arm of government) to secure the support of Nigerians for the planned removal of fuel subsidy come January 2012, and the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison Madueke, is leading the pack.

While the presidency has already sent a letter to the National Assembly to the effect that fuel subsidy would be removed on the aforementioned date, Mrs. Allison Madueke is trying to confuse Nigerians by promoting a strange idea that...

the federal government had not taken a decision on the removal of subsidy and that, in fact, no date had been fixed for the take off if at all it would happen. No doubt, such comments are targeted at whittling down the will of the people to protest against such wicked policy.

I’m not the only one who’s reasoning in this dimension, the Nigeria Labour Congress have also picked holes in the double speak coming from the presidency. In a statement signed by its President, Abdulwahab Omar, the NLC said: “Mrs. Allison-Madueke is not forthright on this matter and the NLC urges Nigerians not to relent in their patriotic mobilization to resist this policy that will further impoverish the citizenry. Essentially, she claimed before the international community that the Federal Government had not taken a decision on the removal of oil subsidy and that no date had been fixed for the removal. These are untrue statements calculated to mislead the international community and to lure Nigerians away from the ongoing mobilization against this anti-people policy.”

The NLC also condemned remarks made by the minister that government cannot checkmate the ongoing fraud in oil industry in the guise of subsidy because we’re not a military regime. The statement described her position as a rationalization of criminality and an admission of failure, adding that: “We do not need a military regime to deal with criminality, what we need is a democratic process of bringing culprits before a court of competent jurisdiction and dispensing justice.”

Since the National Youth Council and other pressure groups have threatened to embark on some sort of mass action should government fail to drop this anti-people policy, lets wait and see how far they are willing to trample on the will of the people.