The proposed N8,000 monthly stipend billed for 12 million Nigerian households as fuel subsidy removal palliative by the Federal Government is the height of insensitivity and callousness.
This is the verdict of a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State, Chief Sunny Onuesoke while reacting to the development on Thursday in Warri, Delta State.
“Coming to say he (President Bola Tinubu) is going to give 12 million poor Nigerians a token of N8,000k on a monthly basis for six months after almost two months of economic hardship is the height of insensitivity and lack of proper planning by the president.
“Why seeking a loan to provide palliative instead of investing in infrastructures, and inter-intra state transport for poor Nigerians, and what is stopping the Federal Government from fixing the four refineries currently in comatose?
“It is the height of insensitivity and callousness to remove subsidy without putting plans in place immediately to cushion the effects of such a drastic policy,” the former governorship aspirant reiterated.
While, however, justifying the removal of fuel subsidy as long overdue, Chief Onuesoke slammed President Tinubu as lacking the moral rectitude to implement the fuel subsidy removal policy, having worked against its implementation in 2012 during the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan.
“In all honesty, the removal of petrol subsidy is long overdue; in fact, any serious government should know that continuing the subsidy regime due to sentiments is like shifting the evil days, which would eventually spell doom.
“My concern is President Bola Tinubu lacks the moral compass to be the one implementing subsidy removal, having led the protest in 2012 to shut down the removal of subsidy by President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency.
“However, now that we have found ourselves where he is now the president of the country, we can give him the benefit of the doubt to be the one to implement it, but his implementation strategy is insensitive and insincere.
“Firstly, a serious government would have put measures in place after a very thorough consultation and orientation with the Nigerian people before outright scrapping of the subsidy.
“Because of his ego to demonstrate he is in charge of things, he made a pronouncement that threw Nigerians into a state of pandemonium, causing serious social-economic hardship on ordinary Nigerians due to high surge in prices of transportation and other household and everyday items due to inflationary reaction to the price of petrol product,” he lamented.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then