Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina has justified the reason his principal could not remove fuel subsidy under his administration.
Gatekeepers News reports that President Buhari has been unable to remove the fuel subsidy since his administration took over the governance of the country.
Adesina, while speaking in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday said, “Each time there is an effort to fight the fraud in the subsidy regime, you have to contend with labour, you have to contend with the people. The government needed to weigh its options because of the social consequences in it.”
During his campaigning ahead of the 2015 presidential election, Buhari queried the justification behind retaining fuel subsidy.
However, seven years after, the Buhari administration announced that subsidy removal will come into effect in June 2023 after he must have completed his two terms in office.
In his defense, Adesina blamed this on economic and social factors.
He said, “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 Presidential Spokesman noted that the petrol subsidy had stayed longer than required, adding that almost every Nigerian has now come to the realisation that it must come to a stop.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, during a public presentation and breakdown of the 2023 Appropriation Act in Abuja, on Wednesday, said that payment of fuel subsidy will stop by the end of June 2023.
The Minister stated that in the 2023 fiscal period, the government made provisions of N3.36 trillion naira for fuel subsidy payment to cover the first six months of 2023.
She explained that the move was in line with the 18-month extension announced early 2022.
