Festus Keyamo, a former minister of state for employment, referred to claims that President Bola Tinubu had eliminated fuel subsidies as malicious on Tuesday.
In a statement published on his Twitter page, Keyamo stated that Tinubu’s administration merely inherited a system where the Petroleum Industry Act, which is currently in effect, and the 2023 Appropriation Act, which becomes effective in June 2023, both lacked provisions for subsidies.
He asked subsidy advocates to convince the Nigerian people why President Tinubu should start on a note of illegality by promising to reintroduce something the law has taken away.
Keyamo tweeted;
A section of the Press is mischievously twisting the narrative to read that TINUBU’s GOVERNMENT HAS REMOVED SUBSIDY. That is NOT CORRECT. TINUBU’s govt has merely inherited a regime where there was no provision for subsidy in the 2023 Appropriation Act as of June 2023 and the Petroleum Industry Act which is now extant has no provision for subsidy. President Tinubu merely acknowledged this state of affairs in his inaugural speech at Eagle Square.
So any advocate of subsidy should convince the Nigerian people why President Tinubu should start on a note of illegality by promising to reintroduce something which the law has taken away.
They should also convince the Nigerian people why President Tinubu should embark on a present illegality that gulped $10 billion of our scarce or unavailable resources in 2022 alone.
He further stressed that;
Those claiming to defend the right or welfare of workers should convince the Nigerian people that $10 billion injected into the economy yearly will not jumpstart the economy enough as to create massive jobs and even increase the same minimum wage they complain about.
That is the conversation the Nigerian people are prepared to have now.
