…. Rejects the idea to reduce the size of his cabinet
President Bola Tinubu says he has no regrets about removing fuel subsidy on May 29, 2023, insisting that Nigeria cannot continue to be Father Christmas to neighbouring countries.
“I don’t have any regrets whatsoever in removing petrol subsidy. We are spending our future, we were just deceiving ourselves, that reform was necessary,” the President said on Monday during his maiden Media Chat at his Ikoyi residence in Lagos and moderated by Reuben Abati in company of six other top journalists.
Tinubu said petrol subsidy removal some 18 months ago has increased competition within the sector and that the pump price of petrol has gradually crashed. “The market is being saturated. No monopoly, no oligopoly, a free market economy flowing,” he said.
He said he does not believe in price control and he won’t go that path. “I don’t believe in price control, we will work hard to supply the market,” he said.
Prices of petrol soared since the removal of subsidy in May 2023, from around N200/litre to over N1,000/litre, compounding the woes of the citizens who power their vehicles, and generating sets with petrol, no thanks to decades-long epileptic electricity supply.
The government simultaneously unified forex windows, with the value of the naira nosediving terribly from $1/N700 to over $1/1600 at the parallel market.
Prices of food and basic commodities immediately climbed through the roof as Nigerians battled attendant inflation.
He argued that he made the decision to preserve Nigeria’s future and that of generation yet unborn.
“Why should you have expenditure that you don’t have revenue to take care of. I don’t want to question people that drive Limousines on the road. We should teach management in all our programmes.
“There is no way we would give out fuel and allow all the entire neighbouring countries as father Christmas (to have our fuel). I don’t have any regret whatsoever removing the subsidy.”
President Tinubu also declared that he is not ready to reduce the size of his cabinet to reduce the cost of governance.
According to the president, Nigeria is a big country and required enough and competent hands for it to be well governed.
He said the size of the cabinet was determined by the size of the country.
The president added that each member of the cabinet was adding value to the governance, hence, the idea of reducing the size was not attractive to him. “Let’s talk about efficiency. They are all adding value.”
The president also spoke on the tax reform bills which have generated controversy across the country.
In response to a question, the president asserted that the reform had come to stay.
He said it would be wrong to do things the old way and expect to get a different result.
“We can’t continue to do what we were doing. We can’t retool this economy with the old method. It is about what Nigeria needs.
“A new dawn is here. I am convinced and you should help to propagate that conviction,” he said.
