Tinubu departs UK for France

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has left the United Kingdom for Paris, France, where he is expected to attend an ‘important engagement.’

This was diclosed by Ibrahim Kabir Masari, senior special assistant on political and other matters, on Saturday.

Buhari had left Nigeria on October 2nd for the United Kingdom for a two-week vacation.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will depart Abuja today for the United Kingdom to begin a two-week vacation, part of his yearly leave. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will depart Abuja today for the United Kingdom to begin a two-week vacation, part of his yearly leave,” Onanuga had said in a statement.

While Tinubu is on vacation abroad, Nigerians are hard hit by petrol scarcity which has led to long queues at filling stations across Nigeria.

Read also: NNPC signs gas supply deal for $3.3bn methanol plant

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and other marketers, on Wednesday, increased the price of petrol by 16 percent, the third increase in two months.   This signalled the beginning of deregulation in the downstream petroleum sector as marketers now have access to direct petrol purchase from Dangote refinery.

Petrol price was  increased from N950/litre to N998/litre in Lagos and as high as N1,003 in northeastern states.

The deregulation means that marketers are free to determine their own prices without government interference.  However, queues have not ceased at filling stations across Nigeria despite high petrol prices.

Also, food inflation in August 2024 stood at 37.52 percent on a year-on-year basis, which was 8.18 percemt points higher compared to the rate recorded in August 2023 (29.34 percent).  The World Bank has ranked Nigeria fifth in the list of top 10 countries worse hit by food inflation in the world.

Read also: Criticism as Tinubu heads for France in newly acquired $100m aircraft

President Tinubu promised a zero importation of some food items, but this is yet to commence. He  had approved the regulation for the implementation of zero percent duty and value added tax (VAT) exemption on selected basic food items, with the policy slated to run between July 15 and December 21, 2024.The policy has however failed to take off, dashing the hopes of millions of Nigerians who had anticipated its immediate implementation in July.

BusinessDay findings showed that the delay in the commencement of full implementation of the policy was due to the Federal Ministry of Finance’s failure to publish a list of importers qualified to participate in the process as required by the guidelines earlier issued by the Customs in August.
Also, the Customs is yet to receive the list of importers and companies qualified to participate as stipulated in the guidelines.

“The moment the Customs issued the guidelines conveying the approval of the Federal Ministry of Finance, technically, the implementation started. But since the guidelines came from the Federal Ministry of Finance, they are also supposed to provide the list of the importers qualified to benefit from the import waiver,” Abdullahi Maiwada, national public relations of the NCS, told BusinessDay on the phone.

Read also: Food inflation falls for second consecutive month in August

According to the guidelines, Maiwada said, the Federal Ministry of Finance is supposed to provide the Customs with the list of importers qualified to benefit from the import waiver.