Human rights lawyer, Monday Ubani, says he expects the Federal Government to obey a Lagos Federal High Court order compelling the government to fix prices of goods and petroleum products within seven days.
Ubani, a former Chairman of the Section of Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday.
He said the regulation of the prices of goods by the government is the right thing to do.
The lawyer said, “The government must (fix prices of goods). The court has now ordered within seven days. A government that is interested in making sure that the lives of people are better will intervene in this particular process and obey the court judgement and say let’s now begin to fix prices on items and that is the best thing for them to do.
“And I think that a government that loves Nigeria would do that. I don’t hope that they will go and appeal this particular judgement.”
The senior lawyer regretted that the failure of the government to fix the prices of goods and petroleum products is making sellers take undue advantage of consumers.
“There was some level of government intervention in the prices of things in Nigeria. It got to a stage where the government did not in any way show interest in the issue of inflation, in the issue of price fixing and the law has always been there,” he said.
Channels Television reported that the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, on Wednesday, ordered the Federal Government to fix the price of goods and petroleum products within seven days.
The presiding judge, Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa, ordered the Nigerian government to fix the price of milk, flour, salt, sugar, bicycles and their spare parts, matches, motorcycles and their spare parts, motor vehicles and their spare parts as well as petroleum products, which include diesel, petrol motor spirit (PMS) and kerosene.
