President Bola Tinubu says some powerful persons looted the nation’s treasury through payments for fuel subsidy and multiple exchange rates
Tinubu disclosed this in a nationwide broadcast on Monday.
According to the Nigerian President, those that benefited from the old order will fight back.
“For several years, I have consistently maintained the position that the fuel subsidy had to go. This once beneficial measure had outlived its usefulness.
“The subsidy cost us trillions of Naira yearly. Such a vast sum of money would have been better spent on public transportation, healthcare, schools, housing and even national security. Instead, it was being funnelled into the deep pockets and lavish bank accounts of a select group of individuals.
“To be blunt, Nigeria could never become the society it was intended to be as long as such small, powerful yet unelected groups hold enormous influence over our political economy and the institutions that govern it.
“The whims of the few should never hold dominant sway over the hopes and aspirations of the many. If we are to be a democracy, the people and not the power of money must be sovereign.
“The preceding administration saw this looming danger as well. Indeed, it made no provision in the 2023 Appropriations for subsidy after June this year. Removal of this once helpful device that had transformed into a millstone around the country’s neck had become inevitable.
“Also, the multiple exchange rate system that had been established became nothing but a highway of currency speculation. It diverted money that should have been used to create jobs, build factories and businesses for millions of people.
“Our national wealth was doled on favourable terms to a handful of people who have been made filthy rich simply by moving money from one hand to another. This too was extremely unfair.
“It also compounded the threat that the illicit and mass accumulation of money posed to the future of our democratic system and its economy.
“I had promised to reform the economy for the long-term good by fighting the major imbalances that had plagued our economy. Ending the subsidy and the preferential exchange rate system were key to this fight. This fight is to define the fate and future of our nation. Much is in the balance.
“Thus, the defects in our economy immensely profited a tiny elite, the elite of the elite you might call them. As we moved to fight the flaws in the economy, the people who grow rich from them, predictably, will fight back through every means necessary.
The Nigerian leader had pronounced an end to the payment of fuel subsidy among others.
While the move has resulted in a hike in the pump price of the commodity cost of living also high, Tinubu told Nigerians that he understands their plight.
The President, however, promised to reduce the burden the current situation had imposed on the working class and the most vulnerable among us.
