A coalition of civil society organizations, under the aegis of the Joint Action Front (JAF), is due to kick-start the protest against the plan by the federal government to remove fuel subsidy with a rally in the economic capital city of Lagos on Tuesday. In a statement issued here Saturday, JAF called on Nigerians to come out and use mass action to reject and resist any increase in the prices of fuel.
“The continued fraudulent enrichment of the few ruling cabal in federal, state and local government and their cronies through the anti-people policies of privatization and deregulation and unprecedented mismanagement and looting of public funds through so called fuel subsidy and security votes since 1999 must not be allowed to continue,” it said.
It called on Nigerians from all walks of life to participate in the action.
The government has said the country’s economy can no longer support the over I trillion naira spent on fuel subsidy in 2011 alone.
But critics said there is no fuel subsidy and that what the government claims to be subsidizing are corruption and inefficiency.
They also said that the removal of subsidy would further impoverish the citizenry.