CITIZENS, including lawyers, human rights activists, academics, and artisans have faulted the palliative measures put in place by some state governments to bolster the consequence of the removal of fuel subsidy on the people, saying it was a wrong strategy.
Some governments announced payment of N10,000 monthly for public sector workers, some allowances for medical personnel and occasional distribution of food to the poor and most vulnerable households as well as free bus rides for students of tertiary institutions. In their reactions, a number of the residents insisted that it was a rip-off while others said the Federal Government should have put in place a proper plan before getting rid of fuel subsidy.
Professor Ihechukwu Madubuike, two-time Minister of Education and Health, said that for any palliative option to be meaningful, it should not be selective but one that would impact everybody. He argued that the effects of fuel subsidy removal “is on everybody” irrespective of one’s socio-economic status, hence, nobody should be discriminated against in government palliatives.
“The effects of fuel subsidy removal are on every citizen. So, the government should think of cushioning plans that everybody will benefit from.” Professor Madubuike blamed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for hastily removing fuel subsidies without any ready action plan to cushion the effects of the removal.
He said that the savings from the fuel subsidy should be evenly distributed to benefit all citizens irrespective of their class because everybody gets the heat of the subsidy removal.
He said that the first step to be taken by the government to cushion the effects of subsidy removal was to crash the cost of governance. He said it was a contradiction for the government to be talking of fuel subsidy removal on the one hand, only to be recklessly increasing the cost of governance on the other hand. “Our Presidents are behaving like kings and monarchs. But monarchy is gone even in Britain, people oppose it now”. The former Education Minister who decried the high cost of governance in the country insisted that only a conscious downscaling of the cost of governance will save Nigeria from imminent insolvency. The former Minister for Health also strongly advocated a shift from consumption to production. He regretted that Nigeria had remained the only oil-producing country without a functional oil refinery, a development, he said, smacks of cluelessness in leadership. “We must think differently if we must move forward as a nation. We must start producing something, and stop being a consuming nation”.
Mr Ayo Fadaka, former South-West Zonal Publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP said, ”we have a fundamental economic problem that can only be addressed through a comprehensive action and not tokenism as currently obtained by state governments reactions. The Tinubu administration that exacerbated our economic woes is yet to put on its thinking cap in the midst of this crisis and that is disappointing. Government at all levels must think deeply and rescue Nigerians from serious economic woes, as failure to do that is simply to plan for a crisis. We are all poor now and rapidly reverting to hitherto unimaginable practices as people now trek kilometers to eke a living, this is not an advancement but retrogression.
Before Tinubu’s inauguration, the poor could still get an uninspiring meal for N100, that is no longer possible today because of the accelerating and galloping speed of inflation. The devaluation of the Naira clearly indicates that President Tinubu did not come into office prepared to tackle the sloppiness of the Buhari era but to accentuate same and this is disappointing when due cognisance is accorded to the education and training of both men, Buhari was a soldier with a questionable O Level result while Tinubu is a certified accountant with a pedigree. We are suffering in today’s Nigeria and we need help, I just hope that one day soon, social crisis will not erupt and create a dislocation that will be very costly to the nation.