Subsidy removal: Governors back FG as NLC threatens strike

The Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF) yesterday endorsed the Federal Government’s decision to remove petrol subsidy.

This came on a day the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) threatened to call out workers on strike from Wednesday if subsidy removal was not reversed immediately.

Support for government on the subsidy also came yesterday from a former national planning minister Prof Abubakar Suleiman and an ex-vice president of the NLC, Comrade Isa Aremu.

But the PGF, which met with President Bola Tinubu yesterday, condemned petrol retailers for hiking prices of their old stock soon after the President’s inaugural speech on Monday.

Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma, who doubles as Chairman of the PGF, told reporters at the end of the meeting with Tinubu that the petrol subsidy was no longer sustainable as the country had been borrowing money to pay for it.

He said: “What Mr. President did during the inauguration, he did not direct that subsidy should be removed. We already agreed as a government and in the National Economic Council that subsidising petroleum products is no longer sustainable, because for the past two years, we have been borrowing to subsidise, and in various meetings I, for instance, have asked questions: who are the exact beneficiaries of this subsidy? And I’m sure you, from the media, may not know the exact beneficiaries and there’s none of us here who can vouch for the integrity of implementation programme of the petroleum subsidy allocation.

“It has gotten to a point that it is either that which is no longer sustainable is managed or there will be no Nigeria, and all of us are committed to the success and unity of the country and the last appropriation, which is law, made provision for subsidy up till June.

“The President, who was only sworn-in a few days ago, has not prepared any budget, and he’s under oath to respect the laws of the land, and one of these laws is the 2023 Appropriations Acts.

“So by June this year, it is very clear that there is no provision for any money to be used to subsidise petroleum products. What he did from the address, because I went home two days, took that address, went through that address and saw that what the President mentioned passively was petroleum subsidy is no longer fashionable and cannot be sustained and we, members of National Economic Council, chaired by former Vice President Osinbajo, agreed also to the extent that the former government had concluded arrangements to take loan from the World Bank, that will be used as palliative to be sent to the people of Nigeria, as a measure to cushion the harsh weather or inconveniences of the complete removal of the subsidy by government.

“So it is not new and I want you people to help this situation, because collectively, only working together can save the country. I thought that what we should be saying now is, in the absence of subsidising petroleum products, how are we going to make this product available to Nigerians to use?”

On the effects of the subsidy removal, Uzodinma said: “There’ll be new economic realities, and once a new policy comes, there’s usually this panic.

“For instance, from May 29 till today, I’m not aware that any petroleum market has imported any product. All the products in their storage facilities are those already imported, subsidized by government. Why the rush to increase the prices? It is man’s inhumanity to man.

“So I think that what we should do is to be our brother’s keepers and learn how to save the firewood we got during the dry season, so we can use it during the rainy season.

“But I think also that as we work towards improving the economy of this country, with the intention of creating prosperity, government will be reasonable enough to look at the reality on ground and address them as appropriate. I have no doubt in my mind that the man who has raised his pump price from N300+ to N500+ is creating panic that there’ll be no product.”

A former national planning minister, Prof Abubakar Suleiman, and an ex-vice president of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Isa Aremu were similarly supportive of the total deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.

Suleiman is the current Director-General of National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) while Aremu is the DG Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS).

They spoke during a lecture entitled “Challenges of democratic governance in Nigeria’s 4th Republic: Setting agenda for the Tinubu administration”, organised by the Faculty of Humanity and Social Sciences, Alh-Hikmah University.

Prof Suleiman, who was the guest lecturer, said Nigeria could not afford to continue to “go back and forth on subsidy removal.”

“Let us face the reality and know where we are going,” he declared.

Continuing, he said: “In Nigeria, fuel subsidy has constituted enormous drain on national resources and foreign reserves.

“I call on Nigerians to be patient as the government resolves the difficulties occasioned by subsidy removal. It is equally important for the government to implement robust measures to cushion the effects, especially on the poor.

“I am convinced that in the long run, the funds saved from the subsidy, which hitherto benefited only a few, can be channeled to development projects and interventions to the advantage of millions of Nigerians.

“The impact that private refineries like Dangote Refineries and the smaller modular refineries will have on local market supply in the short to medium term will be a critical factor in the ability of the administration to sustain the subsidy removal policy since the government refineries will not be able to bridge the gap.”