The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the last election, Adewole Adebayo has described the fuel subsidy removal announced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as untidy and ill-timed.
Tinubu, on Monday, announced in his inaugural speech as the 16th president of Nigeria that effective from July 1, the fuel subsidy regime would be gone.
Reacting to the announcement, Adebayo, said Nigerians would require a shock absorber in the form of alternative measures to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal before any action could be taken in that direction.
While noting that it might appear too early to start criticising Tinubu, he stated, the inaugural speech was not the best avenue to announce the suspension of such a macroeconomic policy.
He added: “I don’t want to seem impatient or trigger-happy in criticising the new president, Tinubu. But it is not a neat way to announce a cost-driven macroeconomic policy of fuel subsidy removal by just dropping it in an inaugural speech. We need shock absorbers first. Renewed hope?”
Meanwhile, Adebayo has called on Nigerians to unite in order to make the elite accountable to them.
He noted that politicians are highly united through various interests like business, politics, and marriage, unlike the people who are only united by problems and challenges.
According to him, “The people who need unity most are the Nigerian people. Politicians don’t need unity because they already have it. Politicians are highly united. You will see today that Godswill Akpabio’s campaign manager for the senate presidency is President Tinubu because Akpabio did everything against all odds to support his presidential ambition.
“Former Governor Nyesome Wike is united with Tinubu. Ganduje was talking like a jilted lover when he heard that Kwankwaso had gone to see his friend, Tinubu in Paris, France. The political elites have ways of coming together. You saw Peter Obi and others coming together to celebrate Aliko Dangote when he commissioned his refinery. They do business together, and their children inter-marry. The people who need advice on unity are the people in our neighbourhood so that they don’t start insulting and fighting their neighbours over politics and then segregating themselves.
“Right now, if I call Peter Obi that I have a headache and he sees my number, he will pick it up immediately. If I tell him that I have a headache and my family isn’t with me and need him to send a vehicle to pick me up, he will not only send me a car, but if he is around, he might come and pick me up. However Igbo you are, If I want something from Peter Obi, he is more likely to give me before he gives it to you because he doesn’t know you.
“The unity between the two of us has been established. The elites are already united. It is the people who shouldn’t be fooled. They should also unite to ensure that the elites are accountable to them. We are already united by our problems because we are all suffering from inflation, which doesn’t discriminate.
“We are suffering from the corruption of the government. When police harass people, they don’t choose whom to harass based on ethnicity. When an accident occurs on the road because it is poorly maintained, it doesn’t happen to just one person.”
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