The announcement for increased Electricity Tariff in Nigeria has been described in many quarters as unfortunate, to say the least. It has been greeted with many criticism as the highest sign of insensitivity to the plight of the masses by the federal government through the Distribution Companies as untoward means of further compounding the woes of Nigerians without considering their position.

A PDP Chieftain, the DG Protocols on Youth Alliance and DG of Global Initiative for Good Governance, Chief Dr. Emeka Kalu has described it as “New year Greek Gift” to Nigerians because there’s no basis for such hike in tariff when actually the people are not getting the services they’ve continued to pay for over the years.

In a statement made available to the media and signed by Comr Amos Kalu, his media and publicity aide, chief Kalu lamented that it is clear that the only thing the present government has to ioffer to the masses is pain, pain and more pain.

Explaining, he said: “It is no news in Nigeria that the bane of the Nigeria economic backwardness is occasioned by epileptic power supply, among other negative factors the government has failed to tacked.

“Then one wonders why a government that has done nothing to improve on the economy by increasing power available to the people will wake of one day and decide to increase the consumption tariffs even when the availability of the service has nosedived under them so badly that we have lost more power that we have generated in 6 years interval, so what is actually precipitating the increase in price?”

Describing the Greek gift angle to this government action, Dr Kalu said:

“It is wicked and sinister that while the N30,000 minimum wage is yet to be implemented above board, the FG has already introduced a means to take it back from them which is a sign that there’s grand design to ensure that Nigerians life will never improve because few people said so.

“I am calling on every well meaning Nigerians and lovers of good thing to stand against this miscalculated step on the part of the FG in their effort to enrich DISCOs while impoverishing the people.

“At any point there is increase in availability of power to such a level that people can get value for what they pay for, we may begin to discuss increase.

The FG cannot continue to take the people for a ride because they increased fuel pump price we said nothing, it has now become a norm to increase anything they wish at any point they so wish. This is unacceptable” he said.

He further argued that Nigeria is already in pains and agony occasioned by “No Economic Policy”, saying that adding burden of electricity tariff is ill-conceived.

“The FG should first and foremost work hard to improve on power supply around Nigeria, provide meters to avoid the usual extortion through estimated Bill’s before even considering increased tariff because I believe that the problem of Nigeria is not Bill’s payment, the problem is getting Services for the Bills paid for”, he argued.

The solution to Nigerian economy is putting the right things in place. Exploiting and punishing the masses will not solve the myriad problems, rather robust economic plans and execution is the solution to these problems and not punishing the masses.