An octogenarian and retired international businessman, Alhaji Azeez Adebayo, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to summon the political will to urgently repair the nation’s refineries in order to alleviate the current suffering of the teeming masses and strengthen the devalued Naira.
Adebayo, who recently clocked 82, was an international vehicles and accessories dealer in the 70s before he retired from the business.
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on the state of the nation, he said the current hardship faced by the masses in Nigeria was largely as a result of high cost of fuel prices with slight international consequences.
The senior citizen explained that this was because Nigeria economy is majorly run by oil, stressing that the drastic reduction in the prices of petroleum products when the refineries are repaired would bring succour to the masses.
Adebayo recalled with nostalgia how he used to exchange N55 to a dollar during his business transactions in the 70s, compared to now when a dollar is well over N1, 000.
“I want to strongly appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to do everything within his powers to repair our refineries to maximum production within the next two years,this is not impossible if given serious attention”, the octogenarian said.
“This to me is a major step that would bring relief to the teaming masses because the current suffering is becoming very unbearable.
“Nigerians are now finding it difficult to survive, it’s not until our leaders start seeing corpses of masses on our streets before they understand how very critical our situation is”.
Adebayo, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State, also asked the Federal Government to establish the Price Monitoring Unit across the nation to ensure that people in shops and public markets do not exploit the masses by arbitrarily increasing prices of goods and commodities hiding under high cost of fuel prices.
He suggested that the Price Monitoring Unit would comprise of representatives from the manufacturing sector, the market association and relevant stakeholders to jointly determine prices of our products and ensure that they’re strictly complied with.
“It’s very sad that we Nigerians are our own enemies. People in the open markets arbitrarily increase prices of their products”, Adebayo said.
“Can you imagine someone selling gari, pepper, yam flour, citing the cost of dollars for the increment in the cost of local food items? he said.
“The Federal Government should establish Price Monitoring Unit at all levels that would be responsible for fixing our products and commodities prices and also move round at random to ensure that they are complied with.”
The senior citizen kicked against the protracted delay of cases in our judicial system, observing that cases take long time in courts before delivering judgment which he described as very unfair to the people of the country.
Adebayo lamented that some cases lasted up to 30 or more years from the High Court to the Supreme Court before final judgment, adding that many people that started cases might have died before final judgment.
He urged the President to take urgent action to review the entire judicial system so as to ensure that cases are disposed off within a short time by the courts.
(Vanguard)
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