The spokesman of immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari says president Bola Tinubu would have lost the 2023 presidential election if his predecessor had removed fuel subsidy.
You will recall that the incumbent president removed subsidy on his first day in office, an action that has fetched him commendations alongside criticisms.
Addressing some Nigerians based in France during his recent trip to Paris for a summit, President Tinubu had said lack of courage allowed the subsidy regime to linger.
But in a statement on Monday, Shehu defended Buhari’s action, saying he did not toe that path in order to avoid the All Progressives Congress (APC) losing the February 25 election.
Shehu said there were multiple subsidies that the Buhari administration inherited in 2015, but they were gone before he handed over power.
“Why did it take the new Tinubu/ Shettima presidency weeks to remove the petrol subsidy when Buhari didn’t do so for years fails to ask the right question. The massive electricity subsidy. The fraudulent fertilizer subsidy. Hajj/Christian Pilgrim subsidies. Remember them?”
“The diesel subsidy. The aviation fuel subsidy. LPFO. Kerosene. Cooking gas and the other subsidy policies we found in place, and put them firmly on the ground. Remember them?
“For those with short memories, many of those subsides were all in place when president Buhari was elected to office in 2015: all those in place were gone by May 2023 – including the annual fertilizer subsidy that weighed 60-100 billion Naira (that’s trillion naira in about 10 years – yes you read that right) heavy on the federal budget each year.
“First of all, my thinking is that instead of the former President answering this question, it is the Party, the All Progressives Congress, APC that is best suited to speak and failing to do this, we are forced to say what will follow here.
“Secondly, we are mindful of the fact that with a Tinubu/Shettima presidency now in place and for which there is a “New Sheriff in Town.”
“Finally, we must be politically honest with ourselves. TheBuhari administration in its last days could not have gone the whole way because the APC had an election to win. And that would have been the case with any political party that was seeking election for another term with a new principal at its head. Poll after polls showed that the party would have been thrown out of office if the decision as envisaged by the new Petroleum Industry Act was made.”
