Buhari Should Resign If..., OPC Leader, Fasehun Reveals How Nigeria Has Degenerated Under Buhari

 

Speaking during a press conference on Tuesday in Lagos, Dr. Frederick Fasehun, the founder and President of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) and National Chairman of the Unity Party Of Nigeria (UPN), disclosed that since the coming of the new administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria has degenerated and that the the change the APC government promised was having a negative effect as Nigeria’s domestic issues has been amplified and magnified negatively. 

 

Below are excerpt from the press conference;

 

Gentlemen of the Press: It is out of the depth of concern for our beloved country that we have invited you to this Press Conference. 

 

If truth be told, the last one year of the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All People’s Congress (APC), has witnessed unprecedented change, in line with the CHANGE mantra of the current ruling party that used to be the opposition party. Unfortunately, the change so far has headed downhill, with Nigeria having her domestic issues amplified and magnified negatively. 

 

The Naira is at its all-time low. Inflation has spiralled to an all-time high. When Buhari took over last year, a sachet of pure water went for N5, but now it sells for between N10 and N15. The Nigerian Naira has diminished among world currencies. As against N205 in the parallel market when Buhari took over on May 29, 2015, the Naira today exchanges for N385 against $1, and N505 against £1. 

 

Importers are starved of foreign exchange. Nigeria has never had it this bad. Worse still is that the petroleum industry/commodity which supplies the available foreign exchange is on the official counter being starved of foreign exchange to import products for local consumption. There is famine in the land. 

 

How can tomato sell at N100 per fruit, 1,000 percent rise above its price last year? How can rice jump from N10,000 last year to N14,000 currently? N200 paint-bucket measure of garri is now N600? Yet our leaders pretend that all is well. 

 

Mr. President, don’t let your advisers deceive you; Nigeria has degenerated since you took over; the lives of Nigerians are harder; living standards have fallen. Slowly and gradually, we have witnessed the expansion of the theatre of violence beyond Boko Haram in the North-East to the rampant Fulani herdsmen attacks in the Middle-Belt, South-South, South-West and South-East. 

 

Militants have staged a resurgence of hostilities and pipeline vandalism in the Niger-Delta. From nowhere less than the Presidency comes the startling revelation that Nigeria is suffering invasion from mercenaries displaced from war-torn Libya. The fact that the President is a Fulani by birth therefore no one will begrudge him if he shows some tilt towards his Fulani background, but not at the expense of other Nigerians. 

 

That Fulani herdsmen carrying AK47 rifles will openly brandish their weapons in the midst of innocent Nigerians sends a signal of the superiority of a class of people not authorised to bear weapons.

 

So will any suggestion of special grazing reserves being created for Fulani herdsmen; it will amount to promoting inequity and ethnic chauvinism. We say no to this evil suggestion. By the way, is creating grazing lands in every state a synonym for annexation of our Fatherland? Categorically, OPC disagrees with the creation of grazing reserves in the South-West. 

 

Ranches should be created in areas that occupationally and traditionally breed cattle with owners going to purchase grass and feeds for their animals in other zones. Don’t disturb the hornet’s nest.

 

Recently, the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, jolted the country when he announced a new base price for PMS or petrol.

 

Instead of the pump price of N86.50 per litre that government fixed last year, the Minister informed that government has jacked up the price to N145 per litre. That price differential of N58.50 represents a 67 percent increase.

 

The excuse is that government can no longer subsidise the product in the face of the dwindling Naira value. With a Naira whose fall has become the butt of stand-up comedy, it means that the fuel price will further sky-rocket.

 

Coming only after months of domestic fuel shortage at the fuel stations, the price increment not only smacks of a mischievous begging of the question of government solving the headache of epileptic fuel supply, it is uncharitable.

 

Prior to that satanic announcement, Nigerians had endured endless and daily queuing at fuel stations. And instead of facing the issue, the government sent police after “Black Market” youths with jerry-cans, who are only seizing the opportunity of the shortage to make quick money.

 

People were told to bring their generators all the way to fuel stations in order to purchase fuel to power businesses and home appliances, a practice that is utterly dehumanising. And then Kachikwu dropped the bombshell of a fuel price increase.

 

Not only is the increase in pump price of fuel a dangerous and illegal step, it is wicked, insensitive, reckless, irresponsible, ill-advised and evil. In some countries, it is enough to cause a social upheaval. In a Parliamentary system, it is enough reason to pass a vote-of-no-confidence on the government and call for early elections. In some places it is enough to call for the President to resign.

 

Government must reverse the announced price as a matter of urgency. Petroleum pump price must revert to N86.50. If President Buhari refuses to reverse this anti-people and unconstitutional increase in fuel price to N145, we demand that he should resign immediately.

 

Click here to read the full text from the press conference on Vanguard.