Former House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, clarified that President Bola Tinubu did not initiate the removal of the petroleum subsidy.
While Tinubu announced that “subsidy is gone,” Dogara emphasized that the policy was already in place, as the National Assembly had passed a budget without subsidy provisions before Tinubu’s election.
In an interview on Channels TV on Friday, Dogara acknowledged the impact of subsidy removal on Nigerians but supported the decision as a step toward national progress. He urged Nigerians to focus on finding solutions to the country’s challenges, noting that real change requires sacrifice.
“The problem with this country is that people always want to talk about her problems and they want to leave Nigeria because of it as if these problems are not there in other climes. But nobody is talking about solutions, even among the elites. When you sit with them, everyone is talking about the problems and not solutions,” Dogara said.
On the subsidy removal and attendant consequences, the former speaker said, “In this case, there was no provision for it, and anybody who told you he (Tinubu) suspended it was just joking because how did he suspend payment that was not budgeted for in the first instance?
“There was no provision for subsidy in that budget and I am not aware of any amendment that took place to accommodate the payment of subsidy. The truth is that he (Tinubu) was not the one who removed the subsidy. But he did make that pronouncement,” Dogara said.
He added, “In addressing this, we must accept whether we like it or not unless we are being disingenuous. Whether the President said the subsidy was gone or he was removing the subsidy, we all know that subsidy had been removed before he was elected. There was no provision for it in the budget and you know the budget is backed by the constitution. If there’s no provision for it in the budget, then how do you pay for it?”
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