The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council has called on the federal government to investigate how funds were spent by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on refineries in the last 8 years.
According to the National President, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council, Maxi Okwu Nnabuike, it would help unravel the fraud in the subsidy scheme.
The administration of immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari had stopped funding of petrol subsidy in the 2023 budget. According to the budget posted on the website of the Budget Office of the Federation, funding of petrol subsidy by the federal government is expected to end by June 30.
However, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during his inaugural speech had said the era of subsidy was gone.
Nnabuike noted that by doing it, the government will earn the trust of Nigerians.
He said the council have followed the major developments in the country over the removal of fuel subsidy by the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“We recall that prior to the 2023 general election, all the major presidential candidates, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, promised one thing in common- removal of fuel subsidy. They all said it was fraud and must be made away with.
“The immediate past administration of Muhammadu Buhari also prepared the ground for the eventual end of the subsidy regime by not budgeting for it beyond June, 2023. It is curious that the former president did not have the political will to end the subsidy regime but laid it as a landmine for the new administration.
“If not, how could it stay in power for eight solid years without reviving even one out of the four refineries in the country? What happened to all the billions of naira spent on so-called turnaround maintenance of the refineries?
“We demand that one of the first steps this administration must take is to probe into the spendings on the refineries in the past eight years. It should also take a step further in unravelling the fraud called subsidy. This is one of the ways the government will earn public trust and confidence as it goes on with the task of reshaping the country’s economy.
“Having said this, we also want to observe that we view the opposition to the removal of subsidy by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, with huge suspicion. We are not unaware of the harsh economic realities occasioned by the subsidy removal, but the truth is that judging by antecedents, we don’t trust the labour unions in the country.
“On several occasions, they have failed the masses when it mattered most. Under the immediate past administration of Buhari, they always started a fight but chickened out at the last minute, leaving the masses to their fate.
“Nothing has changed- they are at it again this time, trying to use the subsidy removal to cash out as usual. But our stand is that they should stop deceiving the gullible public; all of us cannot be fooled at the same time.
“Besides, the independent marketers and the NNPCL are even the worst enemies of the citizens. We find it rather strange that a few hours after President Tinubu announced that the subsidy was gone, they promptly adjusted their pump price to over N500.000. Isn’t this the same subsidy that was budgeted for till the end of June,” he said.
