•Solomon Dalung
A former Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung, has said that the removal of the fuel subsidy has not delivered the expected relief, adding that it has instead resulted in poverty, hunger, inflation, and insecurity.
At his swearing-in in May 2023, President Bola Tinubu declared an end to the subsidy regime with his famous “subsidy is gone” speech.
The president has consistently maintained that the move was necessary to save the country’s economy from total collapse and insisted that it has freed funds that have been shared with the states.
However, speaking as a guest on Channels Television today, Dalung argued that the removal of the subsidy has brought misfortunes rather than benefits.
“Granted it (subsidy removal) has been done, it was done in a manner that demonstrated again that the president at that time did not fully understand the workings of government and the complex nature of the country called Nigeria,” Dalung said.
“He needed consultation. At that time, there was no government — only the president and the vice president had been sworn in, and that wasn’t a government. A proper government, with a cabinet, advisers, and policymakers, should have been consulted on a decision like that, but it wasn’t.
“An individual just expressed it, and Nigerians swallowed it with the hope that something good would come out of it. Many years later, nothing has come out of it except poverty, hunger, inflation, and insecurity.”
The former minister also accused the Tinubu government of failing to account for its handling of the subsidy removal, saying Nigerians should have been enjoying a better standard of living since the move was implemented.
“Since we have withdrawn the entire subsidy, Nigerians should have been living better than the people in Dubai, considering the huge revenues that flowed into the government,” he said.
He further claimed that the borrowings of the Tinubu government since 2023 have doubled what President Muhammadu Buhari borrowed over his eight-year tenure.
