ACN Decries Sectionalization Of The Fuel Subsidy Issue

ALHAJI LAI MOHAMMED.

ABUJA, January 15, (THEWILL) - The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has said it is mortally concerned that, with what may be the tacit support of people in the highest echelon of power, the ongoing fuel subsidy issue is increasingly being turned to a sectional matter, raising concern about the agenda being pursued by President Goodluck Jonathan and his clueless Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with their so-called fuel subsidy removal.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said going by the myriad of newspaper advertisements placed in recent times by several Ijaw and South-South groups (which we hope do not represent the general opinion in the region), and the inflammatory rhetoric spewing out of the mouth of respected leaders in the region, there may be a hidden agenda in some quarters to push the country to the brink, or even bring the house crashing down on all, as we have warned earlier.

It said the increasing attack on other geo-political zones and ethnic groups as well as individual politicians by these apparently-sponsored adverts, simply because Nigerians have said 'NO' to what they considered an insensitive, oppressive and senseless fuel subsidy removal, shows what can happen when a leader, through sheer ineptness and unfathomable headiness, fails to consider the socio-political impact of what he perceives merely as an economic policy.

ACN said it is nothing short of a monumental insult for any person or group to infer that the spontaneous and unprecedented nation-wide mass action that has greeted the removal of fuel subsidy is being sponsored by the so-called failed politicians, or for any person or group to make such an irresponsible statement that the bulk of the fuel subsidy is consumed in Lagos, even when it is clear that Lagos is a melting pot that is home to people of all ethnic groups.

The party said one of the groups even said it would not mind if the fuel subsidy removal - which it (the group) supports by the way - ends up making President Jonathan the last President of a united Nigeria!

''Imagine, for a moment, that this inflammatory and inciting statement had been made by a group other than the one from the South-South! Those behind such group would by now have been threatened with treason charges, that is if they have not yet been arrested. Yet, this is the kind of rhetoric that these South-South groups have been ditching out since the fuel protests started, and the Presidency has not deemed it necessary to distance itself from such dead-enders or to repudiate them.

''Suddenly, a President that was purportedly given a pan-Nigeria mandate only a few months back is now being made to look more and more like a South-South President, who must be 'protected' by his 'supporters and kinsmen' against failed politicians from the other regions, forgetting that the same President won the last election because of the support of the other regions that are now been demonized.

''Progressively but sadly, the Jonathan Presidency is being defined as a South-South Presidency by those who have failed to see that the mess the country has been thrown into under his watch - over the fuel subsidy and the Boko Haram issues - is a fallout of a leadership that has lied to and cheated its people on the subsidy issue, and a presidency that has allowed the Boko Haram issue to fester for too long without a decisive and creative initiative to nip it in the bud.
Simply put, Nigerians feel betrayed by this President by the way he has handled these issues, hence he has lost their trust and confidence. This is neither a South-South Vs the rest of the regions issue, or the result of an incitement by imagined enemies,'' ACN said.

The party reiterated its earlier call on all people of goodwill, including former leaders acting together, to call President Jonathan to order before he allows those who have other agenda, or those who are championing neo-colonial interests, to doom his presidency and push the country into perdition.

It advised President Jonathan that in a democracy, the people are supreme and their voices and opinions must matter on every issue, more than the self-serving postulations of a benevolent few who happened to have found themselves in government.