Kwara State governor and chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, has said the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led federal government opted for the fuel subsidy removal as a lesser evil to other policies that were considered to redirect the country’s economy.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting in Ilọrin, the state capital, the governor said the other option considered by the federal government was large-scale currency printing to fund the subsidy regime.
“The (subsidy) policy was the lesser evil open to the federal government. Other options such as printing new currency on a large scale to fund fuel subsidy would crumble the economy and subject the people to greater harm,” AbdulRazaq added.
While urging patience, the governor said they were working with the federal government to ease the temporary pains occasioned by the removal of the subsidy.
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“Very soon, things will normalise, and we will be better for it,” he said. He said Tinubu had advised all states to go ahead and look at ways of mitigating the effects of the subsidy removal until the labour and federal government would reach an agreement on the new minimum wage.
“That’s why we rolled out new palliatives which include N10,000 transport allowance for workers. There will be food distribution, among several other interventions.
“The former CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had bought a lot of fertilizers and maize which the federal government will now sell to the state governments for onward passage to the public,” AbdulRazaq added. He said the government would concentrate more funding on welfare programmes to keep the economy going and help people to cope, adding that it will “slow down on other things that do not specifically address this need”.
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