Bayo Onanuga, the Director of Media and Publicity for the defunct All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, has revealed that the primary beneficiaries of fuel subsidies are smugglers, not Nigerians.
During the campaign, APC presidential candidate Bola Tinubu stated that he will decide when the fuel subsidy will be phased out.
However, in an interview with The Punch, Onanuga stated that the subsidy has become a real problem for the people, claiming that it is wreaking havoc on the treasury.
He explained that Nigeria cannot continue to subsidize petrol consumers in Cameroon, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Niger, and Chad because they all have a subsidy regime in place. They can’t keep playing Santa Claus for smugglers and neighbors, they say.
When asked if Tinubu is concerned about the burden of dealing with the removal of fuel subsidies.
He said; “I cannot talk about his move or any approach now. What I can say is that he will take them one after the other. The President-elect and the defeated candidates of the opposition, the PDP and Labour Party, all agreed that the fuel subsidy must go. But I expect them to backpedal or claim they didn’t say so again.
“In politics, anything is possible. But during the campaign, all of them clearly said it when asked what they were going to do about the lingering fuel subsidy. All the major parties agreed that the subsidy had been abused and must be allowed to go. Asiwaju also affirmed that it must go. How it is going to be done is a matter of approach. But when he gets to that bridge, he will cross it.
The subsidy has become a real problem for our people and is messing up the treasury. The major beneficiaries of this subsidy are mostly the smugglers, not the Nigerian people. In recent times, we have seen the Nigeria Customs Service doubting the volume of petrol the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd claims is being consumed by Nigerians.
Unless we are a nation of fools, we cannot continue to subsidise petrol consumers in Cameroon, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Niger, and Chad, all because we are maintaining a regime of subsidy. We can’t continue to play Santa Claus to smugglers and our neighbours.
You will recall that in 2015, the World Bank asked President Muhammadu Buhari, to remove the subsidy. At a stage, the Buhari government removed it only for the government to reverse itself when the price of crude went up, impacting the landing cost of imported fuel.
“The Tinubu government must take a decision as quickly as possible. We cannot continue to run away from taking that decision in the overall interest of Nigerians and the economy,” he added.