The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has said the eventual removal of fuel subsidy is inevitable.
According to him, the gradual removal of subsidy is necessary in view of emerging and current realities.
Odigie-Oyegun said this when he received a delegation of the APC National Coalition for Peace and Mobilisation, which paid him a courtesy visit at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday.
“In one way or the other, subsidy must go,” Odigie-Oyegun said.
He said, “A situation where government spends almost a trillion naira yearly on the corruption-tainted subsidy regime is unacceptable and can no longer be sustained.”
The APC chairman said oil cartels and their cronies resisting change had continued to blackmail and sabotage government on the issue of subsidy.
This development, he noted, had resulted in the lingering nationwide fuel scarcity despite serious government efforts.
He described the perennial fuel scarcity the nation had been grappling with as a “national disgrace.”
Odigie-Oyegun said there was the need to restructure the country’s oil and gas sector, which he said had been marred by corruption and inefficiency.
He said President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency to adjust its pricing template to reflect competitiveness and market-driven components might not necessarily result in an increase in the pump price of petrol.
The APC national chairman said the presidential directive to the PPPRA would result in a more efficient and realistic pricing system for petroleum products and also result in constant availability of fuel.
Earlier, the National President of NACOPEAM, Mr. Ahmed Saleh, said the fuel scarcity was impacting negatively on the party’s image.
He said, “The unbearable fuel queues along filling stations are indeed avoidable. The situation is impacting negatively on the integrity of the party and this noble administration of positive change.”
He also called for the total overhauling of heads of Federal Government’s agencies.
Saleh added, “During campaign, the APC went around the length and breadth of Nigeria, informing the citizens on the ills and maladministration of the past regime.
“However, there is a need for total overhauling of all government agencies and the appointment of trusted people to head commissions and paratatals for effective, efficient and result-oriented service to the Nigerian citizens. With this our noble observation, we believe the nation will move forward and the government will be free from administrative sabotage.”
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