Petrol price hike : HURIWA urges Tinubu to be compassionate

Civil rights advocacy group , Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA),  has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to use his good offices to ensure the continuous implementation of the naira-to-crude-deal between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and other Indigenous refineries because any change in this arrangement would automatically result in sudden and indiscriminate hikes in the pump prices of petroleum products.

HURIWA, in a statement signed by its national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, on Monday, appealed to Tinubu thus: “In the spirit of the Sallah celebrations and given the public shows of supplications to God by the President and other public office holders as part of the end of the fasting and lenting period, we are praying President Tinubu to direct his coordinating minister for the economy and the minister of Finance to transparently and rapidly reach agreement to continue the naira-to-crude-deal with local crude oil refineries including the Dangote Petroleum refinery.

The rights group added: “We make this public supplicatikn and appeal because any alteration to this deal would mean excruciating hardships and the massive affliction of poverty on millions of the already suffering, struggling and multidimensionally poor households.

HURIWA argued that political leadership is not about theatrics or empty rhetorics but leadership ought to be embedded in the virtues of compassion, care for humanity and implementation of economic policies with humane face. “It is only when the interests of the greatest percentage of the citizens are satisfied that a central or regional governments can be assessed to have kept faith with the constitutionally guaranteed principles of transparency, accountability and promotion of the public good. The security and welfare of the citizenry is the primary lawful duty of government.”

HURIWA told Tinubu that from its assessment of the public perception of the failure to keep the implementation of the naira-to-crude deal showed that more and many more Nigerians would be thrown out of work given that the operational costs of running small and medium scale businesses that depend of privately generated electricity power supply which come basically from petrol powered generators, means immediate closure of hundreds of thousands of businesses and eventual dismissal of thousands of private sector workers.

The Rights group affirmed that even those of our citizens working in federal agencies and state government agencies would be in severe difficulties to meet up with the anticipated hikes in transportation and costs of living as a result of upward adjustments in the prices of Petroleum products and the persistent poor salaries that these public sector workers earned.

HURIWA affirmed that practically and sincerely speaking, there is a general climate of public anxiety not just  in the downstream arm of the oil and gas sector as operators await the decision of the Federal Government on the naira-for-crude deal between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.

HURIWA argued basically that the most affected segment of the society are the over 133 million multidimensionally poor households going by even the old 2018 statistical data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.  HURIWA reminded President Tinubu that last year, World Bank projected that several millions of Nigerians automatically became multidimensionally poorer than we were in 2018 because of the excruciating costs of living crisis in Nigeria.

The group recalled that the six-month naira-to-crude-deal, which started in October 2024, officially ends today, Monday, March 31, 2025. The deal’s extension or complete halt is still being discussed by the parties involved. However, it was gathered on Sunday that the committee responsible for the negotiations has yet to resolve on the matter. As this lingers, the effect is now felt in the pump prices of refined petroleum products.

HURIWA said that petrol price has increased from about N860/litre to over N930/litre within one week as dealers blamed this on the failure of the Federal Government to extend the naira-for-crude deal between the NNPCL and the Dangote refinery.