The Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lanre Issa-Onilu, has opposed the return of fuel subsidies, asserting that it would exacerbate poverty in Nigeria.
This statement comes in response to one of the demands of the #EndBadGovernance protesters, who are advocating for the reinstatement of the subsidy.
In his nationwide broadcast on Sunday, Chief Bola Tinubu rejected the idea of reinstating the subsidy. He described its removal as painful but necessary, arguing that the subsidy had been a “noose around the economic jugular of our Nation,” hindering economic development and programs.
Speaking on Channels Television’s breakfast program, Sunrise Daily, on Wednesday, Issa-Onilu urged Nigerians to devise survival strategies amid the economic fallout from the subsidy removal.
He described calls for the subsidy’s return as emotional rather than economic, stating that reinstating it would not alleviate poverty but worsen it.
He stated, “Anybody who is making a demand that subsidy removal should be brought back is making an emotional demand, not an economic demand because you have to also prove that if it is brought back, it will solve the issue of poverty; it will not, it will aggravate it.”
“So, what we should be doing is: How do we survive in spite of the removal?’ We need to promote all the efforts of this government to ensure that we survive without that subsidy.”
He also admitted the trust deficit between leaders and followers in the country due to repeated cases of broken promises over the years.
“It is difficult to talk to a people who have for several years been let down. Nigerians feel let down. The first question they ask you is: ‘Is this another promise that will not be kept?’ So, we must prove to Nigerians that this government is keeping to its promises,” he added.
Moreover, Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in an interview with the Financial Times, criticized the government’s approach to removing the subsidy. He argued that preparatory measures should have been implemented beforehand, noting that due to the high inflation rate, the effects of the subsidy have persisted.
He explained that the subsidy had “come back” due to the inflation rate.
Obasanjo stated, “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Not just wake up one morning and say you removed the subsidy. Because of inflation, the subsidy that we have removed is not gone. It has come back.”
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