The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has asked Nigerians to publicly protest the proposed hike in the electricity tariffs as proposed by the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to commence on April 1, 2020.

It also accused NERC of conniving with shylock and corrupt private sector operators in the electricity industry to inflict unquantifiable agony and pains on Nigerians who are at the receiving end of what can possibly be described as “electricity terrorism”.

Dismissing the proposed hike in electricity tariff as the biggest April Fool’s scam by any government agency, the rights group asked Nigerians who are “sleep-walking into involuntary servitude being imposed by the current totalitarian regime,” to demand accountability from the Federal Government on how several billions of public funds packaged in the guise of some dubious grants to the private entrepreneurs in the electricity power sector frittered away.

This, the rights group emphasised, should be a condition precedent before any national dialogue can take place on the way forward towards improving the dwindling and poor electricity power supplies to Nigerians.

HURIWA stated that any upward review of tariffs of electricity can only be an imposition of a slave tariffs for the darkness that envelopes most parts of Nigeria at night following constant failures of the Distributors to meet up with their business obligations to the consumers of electricity.

“Nigerians must realise that what is needed for dictatorship to take root is for the masses to accept hook, line and sinker every unimaginable and toxic policies for good or for evil introduced by government without asking intelligent questions to ensure that there is transparency and accountability always.

“Nigerians should ask the federal government to explain how the N37 billion grants for prepaid meter supply it gave to a private sector operator to supply meters to interested distribution companies were utilised since millions of electricity consumers are still without those meters even in the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja.”

HURIWA recalled that in 2018, the then Power Minister, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, disclosed that N37 billion was distributed as meter grants just as he made the announcement at the 28th monthly meeting of power stakeholders in Kaduna.