…want him to state palliatives for subsidy removal
The way and manner the president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented to the public the withdrawal of fuel subsidy has been attributed to be responsible for the current ugly situation in the fuel supply system in the country and by extension the economy as a whole.
Already filling stations have adjusted their pump prices while those that have not adjusted, have stopped selling the fuel waiting for what the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
Transporters have increased transport fares and there are very long queues thereby causing obstructions to free flow of traffic.
The undiplomatic presentation of the decision to withdraw the subsidy has created more problems than it is meant to solve they stated.
According to them, even though the decision may be good, the action to should have been systematically carried out so that the impact on the other sectors of the economy would have been minimal.
Professor Ndubisi Nwakoma while speaking on Arise Television on Tuesday said that the president should not walk into the booboo trap set by his predecessor who failed to remove fuel subsidies for eight years, adding that the fact that there is no budget for is not an excuse for him to just make that pronouncement the way he did.
“He may need to actually remove it, but make some allowance and then phase it out, so by the end of this year he would have removed it because we need to remove it, but the big bang approach will have serious consequences on the Nigerian economy at least on the short term”
He said he align with those who suggested that something should be put in place to cushion the effect of the removal, food inflation, alternative source of transportation and a social investment plan.
He said something should be done to manage the consequences of the removal, stating that before now there have been debates that the existing refineries should be properly fixed before the Subsidy is removed. He however stated that various governments in the past have promised that if they remove subsidy they would deploy them into various sectors of the economy but it never happened.
What the government could have done was to have waited a little bit for Dangote Refinery to come on stream before making the pronouncement.
The government he said should begin to provide cushion for the ordinary persons and also look for other means to ameliorate
I speaking on Channels Television, the president of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria Festus Osifo said there would be consequences for government action on subsidy.
According to him, the arrangement was that the government should engage stakeholders on the issue before the subsidy is removed.
The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Adewole Adebayo said even though he has always opposed the removal of fuel subsidy since Nigerians have opted to vote for those who said they would remove subsidy, Nigerians should learn to stay with it.
Barely hours after President Bola Tinubu stated that the era of subsidy payment on fuel has ended, queues in filling stations have sprung up across major parts of the country.
Tinubu had said the 2023 budget made no provision for fuel subsidy and more so, subsidy payment is no longer justifiable.
In many parts of the country it was observed that motorists and other users rushed to filling stations to purchase petrol after the announcement.
Many of these filling stations in the Lagos metropolis have resorted to hoarding petroleum products or sold them at an exorbitant amount with prices ranging from 250 naira to 300 naira in some places.
Olusola Bello
