PDP senator wants Buhari to be summoned over subsidy and persistent fuel scarcity

Eyinnaya Abaribe, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senator from Abia state, on Tuesday urged the senate to summon President Muhammadu Buhari over the scarcity of fuel across the country.

Abaribe said since Buhari is the “senior minister of petroleum”, he should be asked to explain the cause of the scarcity.

He said the federal government under his party was criticised for spending billions of naira on fuel subsidy and wondered why the current administration was taking the same approach.

Earlier, ‎Barau Jibrin (Kano north), and 28 senators co-sponsored a motion on the current situation. The lawmakers observed that fuel scarcity had remained a recurring problem in the country, adding that it was time to put a stop to the trend.

Debating the motion, Gbenga Ashafa, an All Progressives Congress (APC) senator from Lagos state, urged his colleagues to give their approval to the N465bn supplementary budget of President Muhammadu Buhari so that subsidy claims could be settled, and Nigerians eased from hardship.

But Abaribe opposed him, saying if the supplementary budget had been passed, Buhari’s government would have spent about N600bn on fuel subsidy “in just six months”.

However, Dino Melaye, a senator from Kogi state, described the oil marketers, who receive the subsidy money, as members of the PDP, whom “the new government is still trying to change”.

He said while the PDP government spent trillions of naira on fuel subsidy, the federal government under APC would not do that.

‎The senate ended debate on the motion with Senate President Bukola Saraki directing the committee on petroleum downstream to investigate the problem and submit its report in two weeks.