No Regrets Removing Petrol Subsidy, Tinubu Insists

President Bola Tinubu asserts that Nigeria cannot continue to be Father Christmas to its neighbors, saying he has no remorse about eliminating the gasoline subsidy in May 2023.

“I don’t have any regrets whatsoever in removing petrol subsidy. We are spending our future, we were just deceiving ourselves, that reform was necessary,” the former Lagos governor told reporters during a chat on Monday at his Bourdillon residence in the highbrow Ikoyi area of the state.

Tinubu said petrol subsidy removal some 18 months ago have increased competition within the sector and that the pump price of petrol has gradually crashed.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain also said he does not believe in price control and he won’t go that path. “I don’t believe in price control, we will work hard to supply the market,” he said.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, faces energy challenges, with all its state-owned refineries non-operational. The country is heavily reliant on imported refined petroleum products, with the state-run NNPC being the major importer of the essential commodities.

Queues for fuel are widespread throughout the nation. Due to decades-long epileptic energy supply, the price of gasoline has skyrocketed from about N200/liter to over N1,000/liter after the subsidy was removed in May 2023, adding to the problems of the people who need gasoline 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.

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