The presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has on Tuesday, promised to end the controversial petrol subsidy regime.
Alhaji Tinubu made the declaration on Tuesday in Lagos during a town hall meeting with the business community and organized private sector (OPS).
It is noteworthy that Tinubu’s declaration came over a decade later after he led a coalition that fought former President Goodluck Jonathan against fuel subsidy removal.
During the “Occupy Nigeria” protests and rallies organized across the nation that caused untold hardship to citizens, Tinubu and his allies critised the President Jonathan administratio.
They protesters, for several days, crippled the economy and brought vehicular movements to a halt in Lagos and in several other cities.
Speaking on Tuesday, however, he assured business leaders in the country that if elected in the February 2023 election, he would phase out Nigeria’s petroleum subsidy regime.
He also told members of the private sector that his administration would reinvent Nigeria’s industrialisation and make the country a leader in the fourth industrial revolution by accelerating the production of made-in-Nigeria goods.
He said: “I am determined to give you affordable and reliable power to light the entire economy as we cannot produce without constant electricity.
“We have what it takes to bring it to you all; we have the gas, sun, wind and water.
“As for petroleum subsidy, it has to be removed and my administration would see to the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA)”.
He wondered why someone like him with six cars would still be paying the same amount for petrol as some that does not have a car.
The APC presidential candidate said his administration would carry out large-scale infrastructural renewal in a manner that would enable the country to maintain a minimum of six per cent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.
He also promised that his administration would collaborate with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the commercial banks to spur a massive consumer credit revolution in the economy.
He stated: “We have to revive our industry. We shall bring the nation’s industrial policy to life. Key to this is our aim to create major and minor industrial hubs in each geopolitical zone.
“We shall not be satisfied by bolstering traditional sectors. We will foster productive excellence in new areas, such as light manufacturing and the Nollywood entertainment sector.
“Through active participation in the digital economy, we shall make Nigeria a leader, instead of a bystander, in the fourth industrial revolution.
“We must target double digit GDP and in the minimum six per cent economic growth to begin to reduce the poverty rate and I am determined to accomplish that.”
Tinubu also pledged to promote the agricultural sector by continuing to press for “reforms in the sector that will increase productivity, improve farm incomes while lowering food prices and bringing enough food to the tables of ordinary people.”
He said his administration would end the dismal state of the country’s power sector that had been the greatest undoing of Nigeria’s economy, insisting that Nigeria must be able to produce and buy goods made locally through infrastructure development and consumer credit.
The Chairman of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, foremost entrepreneur and investor, Tony Elumelu, and the founder of Zenith Bank, Mr. Jim Ovia, were among top business men that graced the event.
Reacting to Tinubu’s promised fuel subsidy removal, an analyst told News Band that the promise smirks of insincerity and hypocrisy and is akin to the proverbial dog returning to its vomit. Read more.
—
©Copyright 2022 News Band
(If you would like to receive CURRENT NEWS updates from News Band on WhatsApp, join here; for Telegram, join here. If the group is full, kindly send WhatsApp/Telegram message to +234 905 038 2526. You can also send eyewitness accounts/reports/articles to elstimmy@gmail.com. Follow us on twitter @News Band; like our Facebook page: News Band.)
