President Bola Tinubu’s senior special assistant on community engagement for the North West Zone, Abdullahi Tanko Yakasai, has said that the elimination of gasoline subsidies has benefits that will eventually benefit Nigerians and the nation as a whole.
This was said at the flagging-off ceremony for the distribution of rice palliative to residents of Nasarawa Local Government Area in Kano State over the weekend.
“The hardship, yes, is caused by the removal of the fuel subsidy and the floating of the Naira, but these are programs that Mr President took a bold step because since the inception of this democracy from 1999 to date, we have been giving out this subsidy and it‘s only going to a few.
“So Mr President took this bold step because we need to save more funds as we are doing now to do other developmental projects like infrastructure, like in agriculture, health and other critical sectors of the society.
“So we were so surprised that none of this refinery has come on board within all these years.
However, within this administration of His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we‘ve seen Port Harcourt Refinery come on board.
“For years, our refineries were down, and they have started working today, which means they refused to repair them. How much is the price of petrol now? It is dropping by the day.
“This is a remarkable feat, and it‘s making its production at 60 per cent capacity. Just two weeks ago, the GMD of NNPC, Mele Kyari, also came out to say that the Warri Refinery is running, and he has taken media houses, he has taken you people there, he has taken well-meaning Nigerians there to go and verify.
“So these are all things to tell you that His Excellency President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is so determined to make sure he turns around the fortune of this country.“
In response to enquiries from reporters earlier, Tinubu’s aide stated that the government is committed to helping the weaker members of society, which is why rice is being distributed to the general public.
“This is just a local government, and as we have 44 local governments in Kano, this is just the flag of going around all the 44 local governments and distributing this rice so that people will have it as palliative.
“We‘re not saying it will go around everyone, but we‘ll do little to alleviate the people‘s suffering.
“We are giving 200 bags of rice for each local government, and for the 44 local governments, we intend to give 4,400 bags of rice,“ he said.