The immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Nasiru el-Rufai, has raised concerns over the hefty subsidies the Federal Government has been providing for petrol, also known as Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
Speaking at a workshop in Maiduguri, he highlighted that since the inception of President Bola Tinubu’s administration on May 29th, 2023, approximately N8 trillion has been expended on petrol subsidies.
El-Rufai emphasized that without these subsidies, the price of petrol would soar, potentially surpassing the cost of diesel, which currently stands at over N1,000 per liter in some areas.
He said: “The Federal Government under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu has from day one been subsidizing petrol, also known as Premium Motor Spirit, PMS. This has so far cost the present administration about N8trillion since inception on May 29th, 2023 to date.”
In a post-presentation interview, El-Rufai underscored the complexities of leadership and policy implementation. He highlighted the need for leaders to be decisive, adaptable, and humble in recognizing policy shortcomings.
In his words; “A good leader must be decisive and have the ability to make good decisions, be trustworthy, empower others irrespective of political, religious or ethnic considerations, have clear communication skills and resilient in all ramifications.
“Though it is too early to judge the present administration, it has been in government for only nine months. Leadership is work in progress. You start a policy because you are sure it is the right policy. But in the course of implementation, if you see bottlenecks, you modify, because the keyword in leadership is not ideology or anything, it is pragmatism. You are not God, only God is perfect. As a good leader when you make a policy and you start implementing, and it does not seem to work well, you should have the humility to stand back and say this is not working.
“For example, if you appoint a person to a position and he is not performing to expectation, you should have the humility to say look, I need a better person to do the job perfectly. Leadership is a continuous thing and in a term of four years, you can’t assess a government of nine months.
“But, as I also said during my presentation, the removal of fuel subsidy by the present administration is another good policy by President Tinubu. I have always supported the withdrawal of fuel subsidies. But as you can see, in the course of implementation, the government has now realized that the subsidy has to return. Right now we are paying a lot of money amounting to trillions of naira for subsidy even more than before.
“This is because the impact has been seen and the packages of support that will reduce the impact have not been effective in reducing the impact. So the federal government has to backpedal by subsidizing petrol. Many people don’t know this. If they want to know whether there is fuel subsidy or not, they should compare the prices of petrol and diesel per litre. This is because under normal circumstances, petrol is supposed to be more expensive than diesel.”