President Tinubu, while making his inaugural speech announced that ‘subsidy is gone.’ This resulted to the immediate rise of fuel price in the country. Nigeria, which is Africa’s biggest oil producer, is experiencing a period of chaos as people queue to buy fuel, as they fear it’s price would rise higher.
Reno Omokri, a Nigerian author and social media influencer decided to explain why it is necessary for the Nigerian government to remove fuel subsidy.
He wrote and published this on his social media handles;
“You keep asking why the Nigerian government could not build or maintain a refinery when Dangote can do it. Let me give you some elementary mathematics. Dangote’s refinery cost $19 billion to build. At the same time, Nigeria makes $40 billion from oil and gas annually. $12 billion of that is used to pay for fuel subsidy annually. The remainder is insufficient to pay salaries, build infrastructure, provide social services, and pay debt servicing. So, we have had to take loans year in, year out, because non oil revenues are nothing to write home about.
So, exactly where do you expect the Nigerian government to find $19 billion in cash to build a modern refinery? This is what President Jonathan tried to explain to Nigerians in 2013, but we would not listen. If we keep on taking foreign bonds, we will keep on putting ourselves in foreign bondage!
Too many of us who need to be listening and learning, want to be influencing and pontificating. You don’t even understand the economics of scale behind the compelling reason for fuel subsidy to go!
Irrespective of whether it was Waziri Atiku, Tinubu, or Obi, fuel subsidy had to go for Nigeria to grow!”