President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration has remained silent over its promise to reduce transportation costs for Nigerians nationwide.
Tinubu had, on September 26, promised cheaper transport fares from October 1 during a meeting with state governors.
The President said the reduction in transportation costs would be driven through the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas (Pi-CNG) and the deployment of electric vehicles.
He also approved the rollout of 500 CNG stations as part of efforts to reduce transportation costs across the country.
However, more than five days into October, Nigerians are yet to see the implementation of the promised cheaper transport fares.
When DAILY POST contacted presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare on Monday for an update on the implementation, he had yet to respond as of the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, opposition leader of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, had questioned the Tinubu administration over the promised reduction in transportation fares.
Although the Executive Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, said the initiative has been successful, transport fares have remained high across the country.
DAILY POST reports that despite the Federal Government’s implementation of the CNG initiative across the sub-national levels, transport costs have remained elevated.
In Abuja and its environs, petrol currently sells between N1,370 and N1,410 per litre, while diesel prices range from N1,940 to N2,000 per litre, depending on the location.
Although petrol prices have declined by between N20 and N25 per litre in recent days, retail prices of N1,370 and N1,410 per litre remain high amid crude oil prices of about $100 per barrel for Brent and $89 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate (WTI).
Reacting to the development, Country Director of Transparency International Nigeria, Auwal Rafsanjani, blamed the failure to deliver on the promise on poor public accountability among Nigerian leaders.
Speaking in an interview with DAILY POST, Rafsanjani said public officials often make pronouncements and commitments without putting mechanisms in place to ensure their implementation.
“You know, the problem is that public accountability is very poor in Nigeria.
“So public officials will always make a promise and commitment and they will never fulfil. And that is why, unfortunately, Nigerians are not having trust in their leaders. Because when their leaders say something, they hardly implement it.
“So the mechanism to make those things happen has not been put in place before the pronouncement. Just like the withdrawal of the subsidy, there was no mechanism to mitigate the issue. And then the president just made that pronouncement.
“And this is the same pattern with this one now. Now we have raised expectations of Nigerians and they have not seen anything.
“So they will continue to think that public officials are liars, deceivers.
“There is no need to rush to make a pronouncement when you know you are not ready,” he told DAILY POST.
