Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, has expressed his backing for the removal of petrol subsidy.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that this announcement comes on the heels of President Bola Tinubu’s inaugural speech in which he proclaimed an end to Nigeria’s contentious petrol subsidy while taking his oath of office as the country’s 16th president in Abuja.
The new president emphasised that petrol subsidy has long been a thorn in the economy, depriving it of much-needed funds for development.
In response to President Tinubu’s decision, the organised labour groups, including the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), initially declared a strike set for Wednesday to protest the exorbitant cost of petrol.
However, they later suspended the strike following a meeting with government officials.
In a new development, Peter Obi took to Twitter to express his support for the removal of the petrol subsidy.
While attending his ongoing petition case at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, he recounted how he was approached by judicial correspondents who demanded his views on the subsidy removal that the government representatives claimed he endorsed.
Obi explained, “If you have followed me very well right from the time I was a member of Jonathan’s economic management team, I consistently maintained that subsidy should be removed because I see it as organised crime. People were just stealing the resources of the country, and I showed it empirically in my statistical analysis that we were not consuming the amount of fuel they claimed we consumed.”
He further elaborated on his stance, drawing an analogy to a dentist removing a painful tooth.
Obi stated, “I also gave them the ‘tooth pain’ removal analogy that 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 a forceful removal.”
Additionally, Obi referenced previous attempts by the government to remove subsidies during President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure, noting the introduction of various relieving policies like Sure-P.
He emphasised that his manifesto outlines a clear plan for subsidy removal, promising to govern in collaboration with the people and demonstrating, through statistical and empirical evidence, the potential savings and how they would be utilised to alleviate the suffering of the masses.
Obi expressed his concerns about the recurring pattern in Nigeria where the government asks the people to endure suffering and make sacrifices for a better future, only for conditions to worsen.
He concluded his statement with a quote, stating, “The problem in Nigeria is that often the government tells the masses to suffer and sacrifice for a better future, but in the future, things get worse.”
