The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the 2023 election, Mr Dumebi Kachikwu, says if elected Nigerian president in 2027, he will revise some policies of the Tinubu government, including the removal of the fuel subsidy.
In an interview with Vanguard, Kachikwu said the subsidy itself isn’t a bad policy, stating that poor Nigerians shouldn’t be forced to pay the “price of our inefficiencies or our inability to manage a subsidy system”.
According to him, only a few Nigerians have abused the subsidy scheme, stressing that the right thing to do is not to stop the scheme but to go after the corrupt individuals, “prosecute them to the full extent of the law and bring sanity into the system.
“That’s what we ought to have done. But when I say this, I want to juxtapose this against the situation President Tinubu met on the ground.
“He didn’t remove the fuel subsidy. We must be careful about saying that the President removed fuel subsidies on the day of inauguration”.
He argued that the previous administration led by the late President Muhammadu Buhari removed the fuel subsidy, noting that Buhari’s administration “didn’t provide for it in the budget. And President Tinubu came in, saw that there was no provision for fuel subsidy and merely made the announcement.
“A lot of people rightfully or wrongfully believe that he was the one that removed subsidies. No, President Buhari didn’t provide the subsidy”.
