SUBSIDY REMOVAL: DR IKUBESE URGES NIGERIANS TO SUPPORT TINUBU, SAYS FUNCTIONAL NIGERIA STATE NEEDS SACRIFICE
By Dupson Collins, 3rd June, 2023
A Former Presidential Aspirant, Dr Thomas-Wilson Ikubese has described the decision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to remove fuel subsidy as a tough one but urged Nigerians to support its implementation in spite of the challenges posed.
President Tinubu in his inaugural speech on the May 29 declared that the government could no longer sustain fuel subsidy as there’s no budgetary allocation for it in budget starting from July 1, 2023.
The Founder of Yeswefit Revolutionary Movement in an article written on his Facebook Page noted that subsidy removal is a sacrifice necessary for a Functional Nigerian State.
He bemoaned lack of political will by the Buhari administration to remove fuel subsidy which is long overdue, saying the last minute attempt of the former president was the passage of the 2023 Appropriation Act that made provision for subsidy up to the 30th of June 2023.
He flayed the petroleum marketers who hoarded petroleum products and swiftly adjusted pump prices upwards within 24 hours President Tinubu pronounced the removal of fuel subsidy.
” Yes, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu mentioned that he was going to remove subsidy during the presidential campaign, but this removal is the handwork of President Buhari and the 9th National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
Ikubese said President Tinubu didn’t erred with the pronouncement saying subsidy over the years has been a conduit pipe via which the political class siphoned billions of dollars of the country’s scarce resources.
He stated further that if the immediate past president could push subsidy removal into the 2023 budget, he ought to have gotten the country’s refineries functional in his eight years administration.
While commending the bold steps of the President, he noted that President TInubu should have gone a step further by warning petroleum marketers against hoarding petroleum products and selling their current stocks at higher rates.
” He should have instructed the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to be on standby, working in conjunction with security agencies to revoke the license of filling stations that hoard products or jerk up the prices of their current stocks arbitrarily”.
Meanwhile, Ikubese added that Nigerians collective allegiance should be to the Nigerian state and not to any individual or political party, saying election is over and winner has been declared by the INE.
“Pending the conclusion of the judicial process wherein the declaration is challenged in court, while the court sits, we must support the government in building a functional nation that we can all be proud of”.
