While speaking in Abuja when he received one of the national chairmanship aspirants of the PDP, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, and members of his campaign team in his office, former President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday, said he is surprised that those who criticised him for leaving the pump price of fuel at N87 are not speaking out now that it has been jerked up to N143. Recall that in 2012, Jonathan’s administration increased fuel price from N67 to N97 but reduced it to N87 in January 2015, and at the time, the move was seen as political, given that it was in an election year.
Jonathan who defended the decisions he took on the price of fuel, said the PDP led Nigerians well in its 16 years of being in power “even though some people came up with propaganda and lies that 16 years of the party in government was a waste”.
Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan’s spokesman quoted him as saying; “My government was severely criticised for increasing the pump price of petroleum from N67 to N97 at a time that global crude price was going for over 100 dollars.
“The pump price was later reduced to N87 when the price of crude oil dropped and they attacked us that it was supposed to be lower.
“Those who criticised my administration are not talking again now that the global crude oil is about 53 dollars per barrel and the pump price of petrol is N143.”
The former President also took a swipe at the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who as a state governor, reportedly said that a serious government at the centre must be able to fix power within six months. Jonathan observed that more than two years of the APC Federal Government, to which Fashola belongs as a minister, the government had not been able to fix power, adding that Fashola who made the statement is incidentally in charge of power today.
