Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has condemned the policy of the federal government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to remove the fuel subsidy without considering the hardship, saying the same subsidy is back.
Obasanjo, while speaking with a British newspaper, Financial Times, Obasanjo said the administration should have considered the ways to ameliorate the hardship before the announcement of the subsidy removal.
President Tinubu had, during his inagural speech in May declared that subsidy was gone, but there have been claims that the same administration has been paying the sybsidy through the backdoors.
There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Not just wake up one morning and say you removed the subsidy. Because of inflation, the subsidy that we have removed is not gone. It has come back,” the former President stressed.
He said there must be investor confidence in Nigeria, adding, “You have to go from transactional economy to transformational economy.”
Obasanjo said marketers benefiting from the lucrative business of fuel importation are going to make efforts to frustrate the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
The former President described the Dangote refinery as something that should encourage both Nigerians and non-Nigerians.
“Aliko’s investment in a refinery, if it goes well, should encourage both Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in Nigeria.
“If those who are selling or to supplying refined products for Nigeria feel that they will lose the lucrative opportunity, they will also make every effort to get him frustrated,” Obasanjo stated.
Obasanjo, speaking further, disclosed that Nigeria made a deadly mistake by putting all its eggs in what he called one basket of oil, ignoring gas and agriculture.
“I believe we made a very, very deadly mistake. We put all our eggs in one basket of oil. We even ignored gas. We were flaring gas, which is a very important commodity
“We ignored agriculture, which should have been the centrepiece of our economic development,” Obasanjo stated.
He recalled how he persuaded Shell to run the country’s refineries but the International Oil Company refused, saying there was too much corruption in the sector.
“When I was President, I invited Shell and I said, look, come and take equity participation and run our refineries for us. They refused. They said our refineries have not been well maintained.
“We have brought amateurs rather than bringing professionals. They said there’s too much corruption with the way our refinery is run and maintained. And they didn’t want to get involved in such a mess,” he explained.
Obasanjo, subsidy
