Varsity Don Hails President Jonathan Over Fuel

A university don in diaspora, Professor Christian Anyanwu, has praised President Goodluck Jonathan on his effort at making petroleum products available for Nigerians since inception of office barely six months ago, saying that oil marketers have no reason to increase the price of the product.

This is coming on the heels of a threat by aviation fuel marketers to increase the price of the product by 10 per cent.

Prof Anyanwu who spoke to The Tide correspondent at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa said increasing the price of aviation fuel is not a good idea as it will affect flight fares as well as the country’s economy.

“We are an oil producing nation, so we should not give a price people can not afford.  The fares of local flights are already high. Flight from New York to Florida is about 99 dollars and they don’t have aviation fuel, but they buy”, Anyanwu asserted.

Calling on aviation marketers to have a rethink in their plan, Prof. Anyanwu, a lecturer at the city University of New York, stressed that any increased in fuel price will adversely affect the economy and bring hardship to the people as business will be paralysed.

“The aviation fuel marketers should have a rethink and reverse their plan because it will have collapse consequences on the nation’s economy and business and airport users, the travellers will suffer the brunt”, he said, and urged the senate and the Federal Government to enact a law to that effect or negotiate with the marketers in the interest of the country.

An anonymous passenger who was interviewed on the issue expressed the view that in the world market, the price of fuel has increased, pointing out that, that could also affect the price of aviation fuel in Nigeria.

According to him; “We are operating a global market and we Nigeria is not exceptional.  We don’t operate market forces fully”.

He called on the federal government not to allow anything  that will bring difficulty to the citizens and urged it to do something urgently  to emiliorate the effect of the increase, nothing that the price of Aero Contractors is now N25,000 to Lagos  as against N18,000.