Phrank Shaibu, the Special Assistant on Public Communication for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has claimed that the Federal Government has reintroduced gasoline subsidies through a back door.
According to recent media reports, the amount paid in subsidies each month is almost N1 trillion, more than the amount paid by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
In response to reports from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Shaibu said in a statement released on Monday that the Nigerian government had resumed providing fuel subsidies.
He insisted that it had become evident that funds were being diverted under an obscure and covert subsidy regime, which was one of the reasons the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited had not been depositing the required amount of money into the government’s account.
He declared, “Tinubu has been bragging about his removal of the gasoline subsidy at every economic forum, saying he should go into the Guinness Book of Records for this.” In September of last year, he even declared that the FX problems and the “corrupt subsidy” regime had been settled before ringing the closing bell at NASDAQ in New York.
But this has proven to be just another deceptive hoax, just like everything else about Tinubu. As of right now, N1515/$1 is the exchange rate that the Nigerian Central Bank advised the Nigeria Customs Service to use. Thus, while the price of gasoline is still between N600 and N700, that of diesel has now exceeded N1,200.
There is no other nation in the world with the difference between diesel and gasoline prices as large as Nigeria. It is now evident that the gasoline subsidy has reappeared behind closed doors.
“Oil marketers have chosen to opt out with the return of gasoline subsidies, which is why the NNPC is once again the exclusive importer of gasoline and has the audacity to declare that it will not raise the price of gasoline regardless of the foreign price of crude oil and the exchange rate.”
