Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has thrown his weight behind the removal of fuel subsidy but expressed reservation with how the President Bola Tinubu administration has gone about it.
However, Mr. Obi, who is in court to contest Tinubu’s declaration as winner of the February 25 presidential election, in a statement issued by the Obi-Datti Media Office, in Abuja, stipulated some conditions to be met for the desired result to be achieved.
Speaking to reporters at the Court of Appeal Headquarters, in Abuja, on Tuesday, Obi said: “If you have followed me very well right from the time I was a member of Jonathan’s economic management team, I consistently maintained that subsidy should be removed because I see it as organised crime. People were just stealing the resources of the country and I showed empirically in my statistical analysis that we are not consuming the amount of fuel they claim we consume.”
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The LP Presidential candidate differed with Tinubu on his idea of subsidy removal, adding that they are linking him to the two options available to a person having a toothache.
He posited that a dentist would apply a local anaesthetic to numb the area around the tooth so that the person whose tooth is to be removed would not feel pain instead of pulling out the tooth forcefully.
Obi said: “For me, I will go with the approach of the dentist while supporting the removal of the tooth because I wouldn’t want to go through the pain of forceful removal.
“Recall that even when Jonathan wanted to remove it, they came up with various relieving policies like SureP and others.
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“If you read my manifesto, you will see clearly how I planned to remove subsidy. I will govern with the people and show them statistically and empirically what we are getting and how we are deploying it.
“The problem in Nigeria is that when people say let’s go and suffer, let’s go and sacrifice, they don’t see the results of their suffering and their sacrifice.”
President Tinubu had during his inuaguaration on May 29, started his government on a controversial note when he ordered the removal of fuel subsidy ahead of its June 30 deadline.