The Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lanre Issa-Onilu, urged Nigerians to map out survival strategies amid the economic fallout of the removal of fuel subsidy by the President Bola Tinubu administration.
Issa-Onilu, a former spokesman for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said poverty will worsen if fuel subsidy is returned, as being demanded by #EndBadGovernance protesters in the last week.
“Anybody who is making a demand that subsidy removal should be brought back is making an emotional demand, not an economic demand because you have to also prove that if it is brought back, it will solve the issue of poverty; it will not, it will aggravate it,” Issa-Onilu told Channels TV on Wednesday
“So, what we should be doing is: How do we survive in spite of the removal?’ We need to promote all the efforts of this government to ensure that we survive without that subsidy.”
He also admitted the trust deficit between leaders and followers in the country due to repeated cases of broken promises over the years.
Issa-Onilu, who addressed information managers, said, “It is difficult to talk to a people who have for several years been let down. Nigerians feel let down. The first question they ask you is: ‘Is this another promise that will not be kept?’ So, we must prove to Nigerians that this government is keeping to its promises.”
‘Tinubu insists fuel subsidy will not return’
Tinubu ruled out the return of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) famously known as petrol (fuel).
During a broadcast to over 200 million Nigerians after days of unbroken nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests economic hardship, the President said the removal of subsidy on petrol was a painful but necessary decision he took for economic reforms.
The return of fuel and electricity subsidy has been some of the very clear demands of Nigerian youths who took to the streets since Thursday to protest the economic woes confronting the country.
‘Fuel subsidy back in Nigeria’
Former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo disclosed in a recent interview with Financial Times (FT) that the fuel subsidy removed by Tinubu’s administration has come back due to inflation.
He faulted how Tinubu’s administration removed fuel subsidy.
“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,” Obasanjo stressed.
