The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has lampooned the Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu over the persistent fuel crises.
The TMG in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by its Chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, said it was miffed that at a time Nigerians were languishing in interminable queues across the country, Kachikwu, instead of soothing their pains, decided to inflict more lacerations by his careless talk about not being a magician.
The group said: “We recall that a few months after he was appointed by the President, Kachikwu spoke so glibly about how the nation’s refineries had started refining products, with some refining at up to 90 percent of installed capacity.
“Weeks later, the nation was inundated with fuel queues, TMG is unimpressed by this kind of propagandist approach to engaging with the public.
“TMG is also doubtful about Kachikwu’s strange talk about keeping what is refined locally in a strategic reserve, while imported products will be distributed.
“It clearly does not make sense that a nation in dire need of products would be keeping some in reserve, while Nigerians are wasting precious man-hours in fuel queues across the country, not to talk of the adverse economic consequences of the scarcity.
“TMG calls on the Minister of State to be forthright with Nigerians, because the people know that the standard-bearer of the change they voted for, President Muhammadu Buhari, does not engage in double speak.
“It will therefore be incongruous for the minister to be making caustic remarks capable of casting a slur on the good and patriotic intentions of the President”.
