President Bola Tinubu asserts that Nigeria cannot continue to be Father Christmas to its neighbours, saying he has no remorse about eliminating the petrol subsidy in May 2023.
“I have no remorse about eliminating the petrol subsidy. In an interview with reporters on Monday at his home in Bourdillon, in the affluent Ikoyi neighbourhood of the state, the former Lagos governor said, “We are spending our future; we were just deceiving ourselves; that reform was necessary.”
“I have no regrets about eliminating the petrol subsidy.”
According to Tinubu, the elimination of petrol subsidies about 18 months ago boosted industry competition and caused a gradual decline in the price of petrol at the pump. “There is a saturation of the market. He declared, “A free market economy flowing, no oligopoly, no monopoly.”
The All Progressives Congress (APC) leader further declared that he would not follow the course of price control since he did not believe in it. He stated, “We will put a lot of effort into supplying the market; I don’t believe in price control.”
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, has energy problems since none of its state-owned refineries are working. The state-owned NNPC is the main importer of vital goods, and the nation is mostly dependent on imported refined petroleum products.
Queues for fuel are widespread throughout the nation. Due to decades-long epileptic energy supply, the price of petrol has skyrocketed from about N200/litre to over N1,000/litre after the subsidy was removed in May 2023, adding to the problems of the people who need petrol to power their cars and generators.
The value of the naira plummeted from $1/N700 to nearly $1/1600 on the parallel market as the government combined the forex windows at the same time. As Nigerians fought the accompanying inflation, food and basic commodity prices instantly skyrocketed.
