Bola Tinubu, the country’s president-elect, has been told what to do about insecurity and fuel subsidies.
WITHIN NIGERIA gathered that this is as the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Itse Sagay admonished Tinubu not to listen to the advice of removing fuel subsidies and as well as tackle insecurity.
Sagay stated that he would not support the incoming Tinubu administration’s decision to eliminate fuel subsidies until Nigeria began to refine fuel.
The senior lawyer stated on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics that security should be the first priority for the president-elect because Nigerians must be protected.
The senior lawyer opined that anyone trying to advise the incoming administration of Tinubu to remove fuel subsidies is trying to make him, and his party unpopular.
Sagay’s position is made amidst intensified pressure for the incoming government to remove subsidies on petroleum products.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government has pegged June 2023 as the date for the removal of the fuel subsidy, ahead of the next administration’s decision on if or not to work with the fuel subsidy.
He said:
The first thing is security. We have to make this country secure so that we can do our farming, and go about our businesses without fear. The terrorism [carried out] by these people coming from the forest to destroy us is unbearable. That’s first.
The second thing he has to do is with the economy of the country. Petroleum, for example, I do not agree that the subsidy should be removed without us producing refined petrol in this country. Let him not be deceived.
Anyone telling him to remove subsidy is trying to ground his party and make him unpopular. The subsidy must continue until refineries begin to work. Now, when we start producing petrol in the country, the cost of petroleum products will drop sharply because most of these costs are due to transport.
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