2023: What Tinubu Told Business Leaders In Lagos About Fuel Subsidy

The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, told business leaders in Lagos on Friday about his plan to remove petrol (Fuel) subsidies if elected as Nigeria’s next president come February 25, 2023.

Naija News understands that Nigeria expends heavily on fuel subsidies yearly, a development debated among many economic stakeholders, some of whom described it as fraudulent.

During his presentation, however, earlier today at the programme organized by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Tinubu vowed to remove the subsidy on petrol if elected president.

The former Governor of Lagos State explained that funds spent on fuel subsidies would be redirected to public infrastructure, health, and physical policies and others.

He said: “We must remove the PMS subsidy immediately. We will redirect funds to public infrastructure, health, and affordable infrastructure.

“Physical policy will be the main driver, we must steadily move out budget from dollar-dominated oil revenue.”

Why Buhari Couldn’t Remove Fuel Subsidy – Adesina Reveals

Speaking during an interview on Channels Television earlier on Wednesday, the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, explained why his principal could not remove fuel subsidy until now even after describing it as a fraud.

Adesina said Buhari’s inability to remove the fuel subsidy was due to economic and social factors. He asserted that removing subsidies on petrol makes a lot of economic sense but does not make any social sense, stressing that the President needed to weigh his options because of the social consequences involved.

The presidential aide said that the petrol subsidy had stayed longer than required. He added that almost every Nigerian has now come to the realisation that it must come to a stop, Naija News reports.

He said: “Removing fuel subsidies makes a lot of economic sense but does it make social sense? President Buhari is somebody that looks at the social sense of whatever he will do. But the time has come for it to go.

“In the beginning, his (Buhari’s) position was: what was subsidy really? But over the years it became evident that the country was bleeding, the economy was bleeding, there was a lot of hemorrhage which needed to be stopped and the time came and that time is now.

“The truth that nobody can deny is that the fraud of subsidy has stayed for so long. Each time there is an attempt to fight the fraud, you have to contend with the labour force which is equal to the social sense. It is said that when a rat patches on a sensitive part of your body and you want to use a sledgehammer to kill it , you have to be careful bause the fly may go away and you end up damaging the sensitive part of your body. So it was the social consequences of it that the government was considering.“