Fuel subsidy, multiple exchange rate cabal, threats to national security – Tinubu
By Emma Ogbuehi
President Bola Tinubu, on Monday, went a step further in explaining his reasons for removing the subsidy on premium motor spirit, otherwise called petrol and scrapping the multiple exchange rate, saying that the cabal profiteering from the measures, had become serious threats to the nation.
Tinubu insisted that they needed to be stopped in their odious path if the nation would recover from its current economic uncertainties. The President made the disclosure in a nationwide address in which he listed measures by his administration to cushion the impacts of the fuel subsidy removal on Nigerians. He argued that the subsidy regime had outlived its usefulness and had become a tool in the hands of few unscrupulous Nigerians to exploit their countrymen and women.
In similar note, he alleged that the dual exchange regime had become a highway of currency speculation.
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According to Tinubu, the resources spent in oiling the subsidy programme could be channeled in public transportation, healthcare, schools, housing and even national security. Equally, he explained, the money diverted in multiple exchange rate, could have been used to create jobs, build factories and businesses for millions of people. Manipulators of the exercise, he said, compounded the threat that the illicit and mass accumulation of money posed to the future of the country’s democratic system and its economy.
The President said; “For several years, I have consistently maintained the position that the fuel subsidy had to go. This once beneficial measure had outlived its usefulness. The subsidy cost us trillions of Naira yearly. Such a vast sum of money would have been better spent on public transportation, healthcare, schools, housing and even national security. Instead, it was being funneled into the deep pockets and lavish bank accounts of a select group of individuals”.
He stated that the group had amassed so much wealth and power that they became a serious threat to the fairness of the economy and the integrity of the democratic governance. “To be blunt, Nigeria could never become the society it was intended to be as long as such small, powerful yet unelected groups hold enormous influence over our political economy and the institutions that govern it”, Tinubu said.
He vowed that the whims of the few should never hold dominant sway over the hopes and aspirations of the many, adding; “If we are to be a democracy, the people and not the power of money must be sovereign”.
Tinubu had in his inaugural speech on May 29, removed the subsidy on petrol, and harmonised the multiple exchange rates, insisting that he needed to take the steps to protect the economy of the country.
