Former governor of Bauchi State and a chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Isa Yuguda, has said the Federal Government was still paying subsidy on petroleum products, including premium motor spirit, otherwise known as petrol.
In his inaugural speech last year, President Bola Tinubu announced the five famous words “The fuel subsidy is gone”, adding that the 2023 Budget made no provision for fuel subsidy and more so, subsidy payment was no longer justifiable.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), had in one of its earlier reports last month, also advised Nigeria to completely phase out costly fuel and electricity subsidies as part of measures to address its economic challenges.
The removal led to the price of petrol tripling across major cities from less than N200 per litre to about N700 per litre, which has in turn, led to a huge increase in the costs of goods and services to worsen the hardship being experienced by Nigerians.
Yuguda, who spoke in an interview on Channels Television’s “PoliticsToday” programme on Monday night, said: “If the IMF says we are paying subsidy, then we are. But the subsidy that was removed was the one that was going into private pockets and I decoupled that subsidy ordinarily shouldn’t have been paid.
”If it should have been paid, it should be paid into the treasury of the country and today, that revenue increase that we see is reflected in the removal of the monies that were going into the pockets of private individuals is what is going into the treasury of the country.
”You have that subsidy being paid on petrol products that are pumped through pipelines and in many instances, they are pumped through imaginary pipelines, where the pipelines don’t exist, so we all pay subsidy but that was what the President removed, that is why most states are getting twice or thrice their allocations”. Speaking on the economic hardship in the country, the former governor said the average Nigerian would not understand the challenges the president had to face in resolving the economic situation.
