Obi: I would have removed subsidy but not through Tinubu’s method

Presidential Candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has reiterated his position on fuel subsidy, saying he would have removed it had he been sworn into office as President.

President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of subsidy on day one in office, without any palliative or measures to cushion its effect.

This had attracted criticism and lamentation across the country.

But spekaing with reporters on the sidelines of the ongoing hearing of petitions challenging the presidential election at the Presidential Election Petitions Court in Abuja on Tuesday, Obi maintained that the management of fuel subsidy had become an “organised crime” that permits the stealing of the country’s resources.

He said he had shown consistently since serving in former President Goodluck Jonathan’s economic management team, by using empirical data, that the PMS purportedly consumed by Nigeria was far more than what it is supposed to be when compared to other countries like Pakistan.

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On the conditions precedent to the removal of the subsidy, Obi said he had enumerated them in his manifesto while campaigning for the office of the president.

“There are things you need to do. When Jonathan was about to remove it that was when they came up with SURE-P as part of the conditions.

“The reason Nigerians are agitating is that when people say let’s go and suffer, let’s go and sacrifice, they don’t see the effects of the sacrifice; and to do it in an organised manner where people can see in a verifiable plan.

“I did a lot of similar things when I was a governor in Anambra State stopping this to do this, and each one I showed the people in a verifiable manner where we are going to land.

“Governance shouldn’t be supply-driven, it should be demand-driven; you govern with the people. Let the people know what you are doing and explain it to them in clear terms and they will believe you.”