- Groups condemn tariff hike
From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
The Campaign for Democracy (CD) in South East and Human Rights Liberty Access and Peace Defenders’ Foundation (HURIDE) have jointly demanded the dismissal of the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, by President Bola Tinubu.
The groups criticized Adelabu for his recent comments blaming Nigerians for the persistent issues with blackouts in the country, the minister suggesting that citizens took advantage of cheap power supply.
In a strongly worded statement signed by Dede Uzor, the leader of the groups, they rejected the Minister’s apology and asserted that his conduct and statements rendered him unfit for his ministerial position.
Uzor said the minister should not even wait to be asked to throw in the towel before doing that giving his unguarded falsehood.
The groups said that Adelabu is one of those Nigerian leaders who believe that leadership position confers on them the authority to lord it over the people they are supposed to serve and talk down on them.
They also said if Tinubu is a democrat as he proud himself, he should by now sacked the Minister, saying those in leadership positions from the President to the Ministers, Governors, Senators, House of Representative members and others should know that they are the servants of Nigerians, not their masters.
“These type of garrulous public office holders always put their boss in trouble as Adelabu has done to Tinubu.
He has already created an image problem for the Tinubu administration. The president should flush him out now” said the rights groups.
They also condemned the outrageous increase in electricity tariffs by the Federal Government, saying there is no justification whatever for that arbitrary and astronomical Increase.
The groups said there was no power supply to justify such a huge and mindless increase coupled with already biting economic hardship due to subsidy removal from petrolatum products and massive devaluation of the naira even when we are witnessing serious national outrages
The rights groups said the arbitrary increase without gauging the opinions of teeming Nigerians signposts a Government that is insensitive and unpopular.
“Tinubu Government is already unpopular. The Government is collapsing, yet they went ahead to increase electricity tariff most arbitrarily” said the groups.
They said the Tinubu Government, in fact the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not done anything to improve the electricity supply in Nigeria.
They questioned why the government should encourage monopoly in the industry, saying that most of the distribution companies ought to have been split into three, four or five to allow for healthy competition just like in the Communication industry.
The human rights bodies said that the distribution companies do not do anything to improve the electricity supply in the country but like vampires, they suck from Nigerians their hard-earned resources.
They said that the greater part of the problem of electricity was corruption both from the Government and distribution companies, lamenting that about 50 Percent of consumers are yet to be metered and it was a deliberate policy by DISCOs’ to continue to milk consumers dry through crazy, arbitrary and astronomical billings.