Nigerians Should Blame Themselves For Subsidy Removal – APC

The All Progressive Congress (APC) has said Nigerians should blame themselves for the fuel subsidy removed by President Bola Tinubu.

The National Publicity Secretary of APC, Felix Morka, said what President Tinubu did was to implement what the law stipulated.

He argued that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) passed into law by the National Assembly canceled payment of subsidy.

He explained that Nigerians failed to speak to their representatives in the National Assembly against passing the PIA.

Speaking with Arise TV, on Wednesday, Morka stated that what President Tinubu did was to permit the law.

“What has happened is not a function of politics or a proclamation by the president. It is a function of law the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) eliminated the system of subsidy as we knew it under the former administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Now as of the signing into law of the PIB, petroleum subsidy was gone. Meaning that Nigeria, this new government succeeded President Buhari could not pay subsidies because the law didn’t permit it.

“So what President Bola Tinubu did on the day of his inauguration was simply communicate what the law had declared.

“And I think this point is critical to make that we should be mindful that what the President did on the first day of his inauguration was to declare the state of the law.”

Morka explained that subsidy was also unsustainable. He noted that the problem was that Nigerians have become dependent on fuel subsidy against international practice, but refused to call their National Assembly representatives to order.

The APC spokesman noted that NNPC did not completely remove fuel subsidy to avoid a complete shutting down of the economy.

“He didn’t do anything of his own free will. It had been legislated by the National Assembly and signed into law by the previous president. Anyone who read the national budget. including some of the supplementaries there’s no provision for subsidies at all.

 “NNPC, being now a quasi public-private entity continued in some way shape or form to some degree to manage that recognizing that a wholesale complete total removal of subsidy would in fact further exacerbate existing economic conditions for the time being.

“The point I’m making is that that subsidy regime had become completely unsustainable. You cannot have a country where all of the earnings, the gross earnings of a country, was expended subsidizing one single product for the people.

“I understand that historically we’ve created the dependency on subsidy, so our people are used to buying fuel at almost nothing compared to what others are buying elsewher.

“However, now that it’s become obvious that we cannot sustain that system. That system had to go and it was removed by law. Nigerians have representatives in that National Assembly. They could have told their representatives object to the removal of subsidy when that discussion was taking place. There were public hearings done,” Morka explained further.