Subsidy Removal: Tinubu had no plans on what to do – Obaseki laments

• Governor Obaseki criticizes President Tinubu’s administration for inadequate response to fuel subsidy removal, labels palliative distribution as fraudulent
• Obaseki expresses concern over economic consequences, inflation, and hardships faced by vulnerable citizens due to policy measures

Godwin Obaseki, Governor of Edo State, has slammed President Bola Tinubu’s administration for distributing palliatives to Nigerians to mitigate the effects of the removal of fuel subsidies and the attendant hardship placed on Nigerians.

Obaseki, who expressed his feelings during a press conference in Benin City on Wednesday, said he was “shocked and scared” by the federal government’s inability to plan and effectively respond to the removal of fuel subsidies, which has caused hardship and suffering to the people.

Obaseki, who called the palliative distribution fraudulent, said the country’s situation was deteriorating due to Tinubu’s administration’s bad policies.

I have always warned. I warned Nigerians during the last May Day this year. I told them that we have come to the end of the road and that the old economic order in Nigeria is gone and we have to come up with a new economic order and stop deceiving ourselves as a nation,” the Edo governor said.

I am shocked that people who campaigned around the country, saying that they will remove subsidies, had no clear plans on what to do after subsidy removal. They don’t know what to do and how to support those who will be victims of subsidy removal.

Now the subsidy is gone; the exchange rate is being aligned. The era of free money has almost come to an end. The consequence is that the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, unfortunately, will carry a huge part of the burden of these policies.

I am shocked and scared of what we are passing through today, where the government doesn’t seem to have a plan or solution on how to respond to the consequences of the policy measure put in place by their administration.

With the way they have mismanaged our national economy, we have to deal with inflation, between 20 and 25 per cent. It means that the people will feel more pain, especially the weak and vulnerable in the society, particularly our pensioners, as whatever they get as their entitlement will do only little for them.