By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Human Rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana has charged presidential candidates in the February 25, 2023 election in Nigeria not to stop at promising to end fuel subsidy but to tell Nigerians the replacement for subsidy removal.
Frontline contenders for the country’s top job have promised to end the fuel subsidy regime which gulps billions of naira but Falana said ending fuel subsidy is more of what the International Monetary Fund and World Bank want to hear than what the people of Nigeria want to hear.
“I have also heard some of the candidates say, ‘Oh when we get to power on our first day, we are going to cancel fuel subsidy.’ That is what IMF and World Bank want to hear, it is not what Nigerians want to hear. How will you stop that? What will be the replacement?” Falana queried on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
“This regime in 2020 announced that we are going to migrate from PMS to CNG. That with CNG vehicles that are powered to run on gas, we will only pay 95 to 97 naira per litre. N250bn was earmarked by government to convert vehicles from PMS to CNG, what has happened to that fund? So when you say that we are going to cancel fuel subsidy, what will be the replacement?”
The senior lawyer said politicians should concretely speak to the people and not simply make gargantuan promises that cannot be actualised.
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