By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Arewa Economic Forum (AEF) has again adduced reasons why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must urgently reverse the petrol subsidy policy announced by his government at inauguration on May 29, 2023.
The Chairman of the Forum, Ibrahim Shehu Dandakata, who stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, noted that state governors are the main beneficiaries of the gains of subsidy removal policy at the expense of the Nigerian masses.
He said, “we at the AEF have found out that the huge sums of money available to state governors are not trickling down because the governors are not investing in areas that will reflate the state economy and are not committed to providing palliatives for the people.
“A check we conducted on recent FAAC allocations has shown that some of the states have had their allocations increased by up to 90 percent with little or no improvement in the lives of the people. The percentage increase in the allocations to states after fuel subsidy removal is humongous.
Dandakata however noted that in fairness to the President, he even made it unambiguously clear during the electioneering campaign that he would remove fuel subsidy if he won the election. “What he didn’t however warn Nigerians of is the unprecedented hardship this singular decision will cause for our people”.
“But fuel subsidy removal is not all about bad news. It has at least caused massive increase in the monies shared at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meetings with states going away with humongous figures on a monthly basis. But how has more money for governors to play with affected the lives of the masses? How?”, he added.
Continuing, he enthused, “we are therefore using this platform to call on President Tinubu to reverse the subsidy removal policy and use the extra money FAAC has been giving to the states to resume paying subsidy on PMS. The President should do this urgently if he knows he can’t find a way within the limit of his constitutional powers and political influence to make the governors more accountable to the people”.
On the proposal by the President and the Governors to create state police, the Forum Chairman said, ” While we admit that state police is a good concept on its own which works for other nations, we are however against the idea of empowering our governors with a tool they are most likely to use for political witch-hunting.
“On the contrary, as concerned citizens ourselves, we are proposing that federal government should revive and expand the Police Constabulary and provide for it the logistics needed to support security agencies to combat crimes at local levels. READ ALSO:
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“The state governments who are desirous of such policing at their level, should be made to provide the missing logistics for it to function well in terms of operational costs and allowances”.
Speaking on the current Forex crisis, Dandakata urged the federal government to summon adequate political will to arrest the free fall of the Naira compared to the rising dollar, as Dollar is not a legal tender in Nigeria.
“The government should therefore ban the practice of keeping dollars at home or in offices, and clampdown on all hoarders of dollars”, he added.
