Fuel subsidy back in Nigeria – Obasanjo

Former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has said the fuel subsidy removed in June 2023 by President Bola Tinubu’s administration has come back due to inflation.

Obasanjo disclosed this in a recent interview with the Financial Times.

He faulted how Tinubu’s administration removed fuel subsidies.

According to him, the government should have put measures in place before the fuel subsidy removal.

“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,” the former President stressed.

He said there must be investor confidence in Nigeria.

“You have to go from transactional economy to transformational economy”, he added.

His remark comes amid the ongoing hunger protests in Nigeria.

The protests, which commenced on Thursday, entered day 5 on Monday with a major demand for the return of the fuel subsidy regime.

However, President Tinubu in his Sunday broadcast while appealing to protesters to suspend demonstrations, said his administration’s decision to remove fuel subsidy is painful but necessary as it constituted a noose around the economic “jugular of our Nation and impeded our economic development and progress.”

DAILY POST reports that core inflation increased to an all-time high of 34.19 percent and 40.87 percent in June 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.