Senator Magnus Abe has strongly defended President Bola Tinubu’s removal of fuel subsidies as a major economic booster for the economy, which he claims distinguishes him from his predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari.
Senator Abe has also praised the president’s ability to weave political connections across divisions, noting that it was that instinct that drove Atiku Abubakar to seek refuge in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, during the Olusegun Obasanjo years.
Speaking on Channels Television on Tuesday evening, Abe, the Social Democratic Party, SDP governorship candidate in Rivers State in the previous general election, hailed the elections as the best in the country’s history, only marred by human intervention.
Rebuffing claims that the removal of fuel subsidy had doubled the cost of living for the average Nigerian, Abe, who was a former board member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC said:
Progress is not about what things cost, it is about the ability of the average person to make more money and in this Nigeria outside of stealing or criminality, there is no opportunity for that man presently making N100,000 to improve on that his N100,000. So he is stuck, he has no hope. What the policy of this president is going to do is that it is going to expand the opportunity for the average Nigerian so that that man that is making N100,000 when this policy begins to percolate into the economy he will have the opportunity to be able to be making N200,000.
Even in the downstream sector more people will get in and more people will make more money and the whole thing is about making more money and Tinubu understands money.
Affirming that Tinubu was the most courageous of recent Nigerian presidents due to the speed with which he abolished the subsidy regime, he dismissed Mallam Garba Shehu’s claim that Buhari dallied because of the elections.
According to him, Buhari had eight years to make a decision on the issue and even had the opportunity to end the subsidy after the elections, but he did not.
The removal of the oil subsidy could have been done anytime within the last eight years and he could have done it even after the election, Abe said.
While lauding President Tinubu’s political astuteness, he stated that he was able to forge an alliance that brought together the progressive Southwest and the conservative North, enthroning Buhari as president and then assuming the presidency for himself.
Senator Abe stated that Tinubu was politically superior to Atiku because the former vice president ran for the former Lagos State governor when he was in political distress, and the former governor provided him with a platform and funding for the 2007 presidential election.
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