Essential Ndubuisi
Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has said although he supports the removal of fuel subsidy, it has to be done with a human face.
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 of the Peoples democratic Party (PDP).
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 afterwards, the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) announced the adjustment of pump price where NNPC filling stations were selling fuel at N537 while others are selling from N540 and above.
Obi, who spoke to newsmen in Abuja, yesterday, on the sidelines of the ongoing hearing of petitions challenging the February 25 presidential election at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), said though he had consistently maintained that subsidy was an organised crime, its removal must be done in such a way that it wont throw the people into untold hardship.
Obi, who clarified his stance on the controversial issue, yesterday, said his support for the policy dated back to the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan when he was a member of the Presidential Economic Management team.
He likened the subsidy issue to a person with toothache, saying the problem was not just with the removal of the bad tooth but how it was removed.
He said: “If you approach a dentist to remove a painful tooth, he will apply a local anaesthetic 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 (Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Program) 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.”
