Haruna Usman – Birnin Kebbi
Some group of youth under the aegis of youth for equity and justice has vehemently rejected the federal government’s plan to scrap Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF).
Arising from their executive meeting that was held in Birnin Kebbi, the state chairman Gadanga Haruna said they have been following developments regarding the issue now that, “the federal government decided to wrongly act on it we resolved thus that PEF 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 youth body we have roundly condemned in strong terms 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 already poverty and unemployments is fuelling banditry in the country.
“The scourge of unemployment 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 has little or no control of the nation’s petroluem 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 youth to be dump by government, the federal government must retrace its steps by addressing her issues in the petroleum sector without having to scrap anybody, our stand remains that we are opposed to the scrapping of PEF and any other federal agency” the chairman added.
