As the country grapples with the high cost of living associated with the sudden removal of fuel subsidy, Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 presidential election, has offered his opinion on the matter.
Obi said that a more gradual removal occasioned by the provision of “various relieving policies” rather than a “forceful removal” as currently witnessed would have been his preferred line of action.
The former Anambra State governor gave this thought when he spoke with judicial correspondents at the Court of Appeal, venue of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, on Tuesday.
Obi tweeted after his thought said, “I’ve actually been in support of the removal of subsidies right from the President Goodluck Jonathan era, when I was a member of the Economic Management team.
“If you have followed me very well, right from the time I was a member of Jonathan’s economic management team, I consistently maintained that subsidy should be removed because I see it as organised crime.
“People were just stealing the resources of the country, and I showed it empirically in my statistical analysis that we were not consuming the amount of fuel they claimed we consumed.”
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He referenced the approach used by dentists to remove a painful tooth, saying that he would apply a local anaesthetic like a dentist would to numb the area around the tooth so that pain is suppressed.
“It’s not the same thing as pulling the tooth forcefully; the pain you feel will be different. For me, I will go with the approach of the dentist while supporting the removal of the tooth because I wouldn’t want to go through the pain of a forceful removal.
“Recall that even when Jonathan’s government wanted to remove it, they came up with various relieving policies like Sure-P and others. If you read my manifesto, you will see clearly how I planned to remove subsidies. I will govern with the people and show them statistically and empirically what we are going to save and what we are going to do with the savings to better the suffering masses.
“The problem in Nigeria is that often the government tells the masses to suffer and sacrifice for a better future, but in the future things get worse,” he added.
