Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) has asked the President Bola Tinubu led federal government to review the fuel subsidy removal policy following claims that Nigeria still pays for it.
Although Tinubu, on his inauguration as president, declared an end to the payment
of the subsidy, the World Bank and the chief executive officer and managing
director of Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited, Mr. Robert Dickerman recently claimed
that the federal government still pays subsidy for the product.
As such, Falana in a statement called on the government to respond to them and also review the policy.
He said since there is no provision for fuel
subsidy in the 2023 and 2024 Appropriation Acts, the federal government should,
without any further delay, confirm or deny the serious allegation and end the
opacity surrounding the importation of fuel from foreign countries.
It would be recalled that after the Muhammadu
Buhari administration announced that it had removed subsidy on petrol, it
turned around to spend N11 trillion on the so-called “under-recovery” within a
period of 8 years.
Falana pointed that if the federal government is spending as much
as N1 trillion on fuel subsidy per month, it is high time the policy was
reviewed in the interest of the Nigerian people instead of urging Nigerians to
continue to endure the hardship caused by the subsidy removal.