A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Farouk Adamu Aliyu, said the party members opposed former President Goodluck Jonathan’s fuel subsidy removal out of ignorance.
Adamu, who spoke exclusively with The ICIR, said some of the APC’s chieftains who protested the subsidy removal were ignorant about the stark realities of the Nigerian economy.
Despite making fuel subsidy removal a core policy of its administration, President Bola Tinubu, alongside key members of the ruling party, opposed Jonathan and took to the streets in protest, christened ‘Occupy Nigeria’ in major cities including Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and the Nigerian High Commission in London.
“But there are also certain things that when you’re in opposition or where you’re not in government, you don’t know. So, there are certain things we did when Jonathan was in government. Sadly, it was due to ignorance of all of us, on our side,” Faruk said.
“So, this means when you’re in government, there are certain decisions you will take that nobody will understand. Now we understand that Jonathan was not wrong in trying to remove the subsidy because everybody in Nigeria believed it was a fraud,” he disclosed further.
The fuel subsidy removal which was partially enforced, according to Jonathan’s government also led to an increase in fuel prices from ₦65 per litre to ₦141 per litre.
Conversely, fuel prices have increased by more than 200 per cent under Tinubu, which has prompted high energy prices and high inflation, leaving Nigerians poorer with lower purchasing power.
Faruk, recalled that the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, in the company of other party leaders, championed the protest for the fuel subsidy removal under Jonathan, despite an intermittent rise in the price of fuel under Buhari and total removal by the Tinubu administration.
“I think we as a government should be knocked for the protest, for back in the days when Jonathan was in government, myself, President Tinubu, late President Buhari and Oyegun, were all in the streets all over the country demonstrating against the increase of oil prices at that time and we did everything to make sure Jonathan chickened out.
He added, “When Buhari came, I think the prices of petroleum went up about three times, and then Tinubu removed the subsidy totally.”
He said Buhari would have removed the fuel subsidy totally, but was advised not to because of the 2023 election.
The ICIR reports that this is not the first time a key member of the ruling party has spoken up about political antics surrounding fuel subsidy removal.
The immediate past governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, revealed that the protest launched against the planned fuel subsidy removal during Jonathan’s administration in 2012 was mere politics.
Fayemi stated this while delivering his keynote address at a national dialogue organised to celebrate the 60th birthday of the founding National Secretary of Alliance for Democracy (AD), Udenta Udenta, a professor, in Abuja.
It would be noted that fuel subsidy removal under Jonathan had a structured scheme where the proceeds from the savings were plugged into as Subsidy Reinvestment Programmes (SURE-P).
The funds were ploughed into purchasing high-capacity buses and for improving health of pregnant mothers and children, among others.
The ICIR reports that although Nigerians saw improved accruals to the federation allocations and states following fuel subsidy removal by Tinubu, there are still unanswered questions about wholistic social safety nets for Nigerians worse hit by the decision.
Amid increased allocation to States and Federal Government, The ICIR reported that the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, called on the Tinubu government to establish social safety nets for poor Nigerians affected by its reforms.
COURTESY: icirnigeria
