The Minister of the Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has defended President Bola Tinubu’s decision to remove fuel subsidy, insisting that retaining it would have been unlawful, as there was no budgetary provision for it when the administration took office.
Naija News reports that Tunji-Ojo made the remarks on Monday while speaking at a panel session of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) annual conference in Abuja, where he shared the stage with former Education Minister, Oby Ezekwesili.
He said, “As of the time this administration came on board, there was no provision for subsidy in the national budget.
“Paying for subsidy would have been illegal because it was not budgeted for. We have accumulated wrong choices made over the years that are being corrected. So, we need to take out emotion and look at the facts of where we were coming from and where we are now.”
President Tinubu, in his May 29, 2023, inaugural speech, had declared that “fuel subsidy is gone,” a pronouncement that immediately triggered a sharp rise in prices of fuel, goods, and services nationwide.
Speaking at the same session, Ezekwesili criticised the government’s handling of the subsidy removal, arguing that while the reform itself was necessary, it was poorly implemented.
She said, “When we train in economic policy, you really have to prepare for reforms. I think that there was a braggadocio that was behind that whole ‘subsidy is gone’. That reform was not prepared for.
“So what we ended up in that situation was a good reform done in the wrong way. And because that good reform was done in the wrong way, it signalled to every other economic type of decisions that citizens had to make, and it threw the economy into the inflationary situation that we have found.”
But Tunji-Ojo countered, stressing that the policy was inevitable, given the vast sums being expended on subsidies annually.
He said, “We were busy spending money that we did not have. Nigeria was spending about $25 billion annually on subsidy. When a man has a tumour, it is not Panadol that is prescribed. Surgery may be the solution.
“The economy is not stupid, but our choices over the years have been stupid.”
He explained that savings from the subsidy removal were now being redirected to infrastructure projects aimed at stimulating production and creating long-term growth.
The post Tinubu Couldn’t Pay Subsidy Without Budget — Interior Minister appeared first on Naija News.
