The pan-northern socio-political organisation, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), lamented that hard times, including inflation, unemployment, and rapid deterioration in standards of living coupled with incidents of insurgency, terrorism, and banditry faced by the average citizen, are becoming unbearable.
The pan-northern body also said that Nigeria is gradually drifting into chaos following the economic hardship that engulfed it as a result of the subsidy removal.
The body said this at its National Executive Council meeting held at the 11A Sokoto Secretariat of the ACF, Kaduna, on Tuesday.
A communiqué issued at the end of the one-day meeting by the National Publicity Secretary of the ACF, Prof. Tukur Muhammad-Baba, blamed the economic hardship on fuel subsidy removal, the introduction of taxes and levies by the Federal Government, saying that these policies were responsible for a rapid decline in the living conditions of citizens.
The communique partly read, “These problems reflect the region’s cascading political, social, and economic challenges. NEC reiterates ACF’s earlier expressed position that the emergent protracted dimension of these problems, if untamed, are harbingers of citizens’ discontent, and social chaos.
“Equally worrisome is the widening regional disparities in social demographic factors, such as access to education, health, infrastructure, economic inclusion, political participation, living conditions, etc.”
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“Governments must move to curb such disparities to ensure that Nigeria does not become two-states-in-one. Factors that unify rather than divide citizens along any lines should attract the attention of all concerned, government and citizens alike.
“As it has severally reiterated in recent public outings, ACF calls for urgent action and definitive attention, by the government at all levels, to confront the rapid decline in living conditions of citizens.
“The addition of new taxes and levies becoming increasingly burdensome too heavy to bear for ordinary Nigerians. The need for a rollout of public policy programmes and projects aimed at addressing low purchasing power challenges is indicated.”
It added, “On the national front and specifically applicable to the Northern states, NEC notes that the times continue to be tough and challenging for the average citizen who is daily confronted with runaway inflation, unemployment, rapid deterioration in standards of living in the face of incidents of insurgency, terrorism and banditry, etc., problems that have remained dire, acute (or even chronic in some places in the North in particular).
“The immediate causes of the problems have been policies put in place by the government over the past months, including but not confined to removal of subsidies from the prices of petroleum products, floating of the Naira, and astronomical hike in the cost of poorly supplied electricity, increasing tariffs and taxes against the seemingly insensitive profligacy in spendings by public officials, to list a few.
“ACF acknowledges the efforts of the Federal, state and, to a little extent, local governments to tackle the problems identified above. However, overall, it is undeniable, perhaps due to the quantum and widening dimension of the problems, that public policy response to the problems remains weak and ineffective at best.”
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