Peter Obi at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Photo: Twitter/@PeterObi
The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the Feb. 25 Presidential Election, Mr Peter Obi, has said that although he supports the removal of fuel subsidy, it has to be done with a human face. Obi said that Nigerians need to have a detailed explanation, with data, about the savings to be made and where the saved monies would be channelled into.
Obi spoke to newsmen on Tuesday in Abuja on the sidelines of the ongoing hearing of petitions challenging the Feb. 25 presidential election at the Presidential Election Petition Court.
He said that even though he had consistently maintained that subsidy was an organised crime, its removal must be done in such a way that it won’t throw the people into untold hardship.
“Throughout my campaigns, go and check my manifesto, I had maintained this about its removal.
“If you have a toothache and you go to a dentist, there is a difference between removing your tooth by applying anaesthesia, which will ameliorate your pains, than by just pulling it out.
“The difference is that I believe it should be removed with conditions, and those conditions have to be applied.”
He said that as president, he would also have removed fuel subsidy but would have introduced a new open and transparent system that would carry people along.
“If I was involved, I would have had to show empirical, statistical data how much we are going to save, where we are going to apply it and the gains for the people.
“I said throughout my campaign, that I am going to govern the people by being open, showing them empirical, verifiable facts on how the country can be better, that is what I would have done.
“There are things you need to do. When former President Goodluck Jonathan was about to remove it that was when they came up with SURE-P as part of the conditions.
“The reason Nigerians are agitating is that when people say let’s go and suffer, let’s go and sacrifice, they don’t see the effects of the sacrifice; and we need to do this in an organised manner where people can see in a verifiable plan.
“Governance shouldn’t be supply driven, it should be demand-driven. You govern with the people, let the people know what you are doing and explain it to them in clear terms and they will believe you.”
He said he had shown consistently even during the tenure of Jonathan’s economic management team, that using empirical data, the PMS purportedly consumed by Nigeria was far more than what it was supposed to be when compared to other countries like Pakistan.”
Obi explains his subsidy removal support with a toothache analogy.
Obi who was ‘ambushed’ by judicial correspondents as he attended his ongoing election petition case at the Court of Appeal headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, said that his support for subsidy removal dates back to the Goodluck Jonathan era when he was a member of the Presidential Economic Management Team.
“If you have followed me very well right from the time I was a member of Jonathan’s economic management team, I consistently maintained that subsidy should be removed because I see it as organized crime. People were just stealing the resources of the country and I showed empirically in my statistical analysis that we are not consuming the amount of fuel they claim we consume.”
The former Anambra State governor differentiated his idea of subsidy removal from what is happening in the country now that they are linking him to the two options available to a person having a toothache.
He said, “if you approach a dentist to remove a painful tooth, he will apply a local anesthetic to numb the area around the tooth so you do not feel pain. It’s not the same thing as pulling the tooth forcefully, the pain you feel will be different.
“For me, I will go with the approach of the dentist while supporting the removal of the tooth because I wouldn’t want to go through the pain of forceful removal.
“Recall that even when Jonathan wanted to remove it, they came up with various relieving policies like Sure-P and others.
“If you read my manifesto, you will see clearly how I planned to remove subsidy, I will govern with the people and show them statistically and empirically what we are getting and how we are deploying it.
“The problem in Nigeria is that when people say let’s go and suffer, let’s go and sacrifice, they don’t see the results of their suffering and their sacrifice,” he concluded.
PETER OBI’s INTERVIEW ON VIDEO
BRANDPOWER reports that the issue of subsidy removal by government has been on the front burner in the county for years.
It formed part of the campaign manifesto of several presidential candidates during the 2023 general elections, including Obi and Alhaji Abubakar Atiku.
President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of subsidy on petrol on May 29 when he took his oath of office as the 16th president of Nigeria, saying there was no allocation for it in the 2023 budget beyond July.
Shortly afterward, the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) announced the adjustment of pump price where NNPCL filling stations were selling fuel between N488 and N620.
This led to vociferous opposition by a cross-section of Nigerians and labour groups including the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) who had originally called for a nationwide strike beginning on Wednesday but postponed following further consultations with government and an order restraining them by the National Arbitration Court.
