Former Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State says the Nigerian government still pays subsidy on petroleum products.
Yuguda stated this in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday.
Recall that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his May 2023 inaugural speech, announced that “fuel subsidy is gone.”
Tinubu disclosed that the 2023 Budget made no provision for fuel subsidy and more so, subsidy payment was no longer justifiable.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in one of its reports last month also advised Nigeria to completely phase out costly fuel and electricity subsidies as part of measures to address its economic challenges.
Reacting to the subsidy saga, Yuguda said: ”If the IMF says we are paying subsidy then we are. But the subsidy that was removed was the one that was going into private pockets and I decoupled that subsidy that ordinarily shouldn’t have been paid.”
”If it should have been paid it should be paid into the treasury of the country and today that revenue increase that we see is reflected in the removal of the monies that were going into the pockets of private individuals is what is going into the treasury of the country.
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”You have that subsidy being paid on petrol products that are pumped through pipelines and in many instances they are pumped through imaginary pipelines, where the pipelines don’t exist, so we all pay subsidy but that what was the President removed, that is why most states are getting twice or thrice of their allocation.”
Speaking on the economic hardship in the country, the former Governor said the average Nigerian will not understand the challenges the President has to face in resolving the economic situation.
He noted that the members of the president’s cabinet need to help in sensitising the masses on how the government policies will change the nation.
”I will expect the cabinet of Mr Predisnet to go down the strata of our society and explain to the people that this is the situation that we have found ourselves in.”
”If we hadn’t had our Central Bank messing us up and the economy that has been mismanaged in the past, it wouldn’t be the way it is today,” he added.
