IBADAN— ATTORNEY- General of the Federation and Justice Minister, Chief Akin Olujimi, said yesterday that Nigerians should wake up to the reality that they would eventually pay N70 per litre of petrol, or live with fuel scarcity.
Chief Olujimi’s statement at a book launch in Ibadan is the latest in a string of hints from government officials that the country has not had its last rise in fuel prices.
“Obviously, it is the intention of every businessman to make gains. If marketers buy fuel at N70 and you want them to sell at N40, they will refuse to import and what you have is a return to those days of fuel scarcity,” he said at the presentation of Oyo at 28 written by Prince A.G.A. Ladigbolu. “And you know that when there is scarcity, we will buy it far more than the price we are complaining about now,” the minister said.
Deregulation, he claimed, remained the best option because, according to him, government could not meet the daily demand of Nigerians. “So, we have to continue to import fuel and has handed off importation. This is what NLC does not want to believe. Our government is not out to make life difficult for anybody. ”
The minister also spoke on the imposition of emergency rule in Plateau State by President Olusegun Obasanjo and dismissed criticisms that the president violated the constitution by his action.
Said he: “All those who were critising the president over the issue were wrong and I want to direct them to section 305 of the constitution. The president was in order and I challenge them to go and look at the section. The language is very clear on what the president can do in such a situation.”
Critics, he said, "should go and read the constitution with an open mind “and they will see that the president did not act outside the constitution.”
The attorney-general, who also spoke on plans by government to decongest the prisons, said an audit committee set up by his ministry was already going round all prisons to ascertain the number of those awaiting trial, adding that at the end of the committees' tour, “it will write its report and anybody who has spent between five to 10 years without trial will be released. Such person has no business again in the prison.”
Olujimi said the move was to bring an end to over-population of our prisons, adding: “A report will soon be presented to the National Assembly on the abolition of death penalty in Nigeria’s law books. So many advanced countries have abolished the death penalty and we are under intense pressure to follow but we are about to do so now. A committee set up to collate views and opinions of Nigerians on the issue are about to finish their report and I will soon present the report to the National Assembly for ratification.”
