Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says the union does not believe there is fuel subsidy in the country.
Recall President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had at his inauguration announced that “subsidy is gone,” sparking a hike in price and shortage of the product across the country.
The ASUU boss who spoke at the Alex Ekweme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo in Ebonyi State on Wednesday however wondered how Nigeria can be exporting crude oil but cannot refine the same.
Speaking at the sidelines of a lecture captioned, ‘Advancing Technology through Quality Education, the ASUU Perspective’ he said: “We don’t believe that there is fuel subsidy. You can’t be exporting crude oil for the past 70 years, and you still cannot refine the crude oil and sell to your people at the Nigerian rate, not at dollar. Then, something is wrong.”
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He further lamented the inability of the country to have a functioning refinery, decrying the humongous amounts spent on the existing ones.
“It is not rocket science to build a refinery. When the country deliberately refuses to maintain the ones they have but people [working there] are being paid,” the ASUU president said.
“Nigeria has spent trillions of naira in the past three years or so on the renovation of refineries yet nothing is working. Meanwhile, smaller countries have functional refineries.”
