President Bola Tinubu said in his first presidential media briefing on Monday, December 24, that he has no remorse about eliminating the gasoline subsidy.
As an unsustainable expenditure, Tinubu stressed that the subsidy was bad for Nigeria’s economic future.
“Nigeria was spending its future and was not investing,” Tinubu said. “We were spending the fortune of our future generations, we were not investing. We were just deceiving ourselves. That reform was necessary. Why should you have expenditures that we don’t have revenue for?”
The president stressed the importance of resource management in all national programs. “We should teach management in all our programmes, we have to manage our resources,” he stated.
Tinubu also criticized the old subsidy scheme, which allowed Nigerian fuel to benefit neighboring countries at the expense of Nigeria.
“There is no way you give out fuel and allow all the entire neighbouring countries as Father Christmas. I don’t have regret whatsoever removing the subsidy. It is necessary. We cannot spend our future generation investments upfront,” he concluded.
