EKO HOT BLOG reports that the Chief Spokesperson for the Bola Tinubu Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Festus Keyamo (SAN), has criticized the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) for opposing fuel subsidy removal in the country.
The NLC had warned that those pushing for subsidy removal in Nigeria want to set the country on fire following the announcement that the outgoing government of President Mohammadu Buhari had left the decision of petrol subsidy removal to the incoming government.
Tinubu is the president-elect and is expected to be sworn in on May 29.
According to NLC, the focus should be on local refining of petroleum products, declaring that anybody thinking of subsidy removal wants to blow up the country.
But reacting to the NLC’s warning via Twitter on Tuesday night, Keyamo said the NLC ‘contradicted itself’ because its preferred candidate, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, also promised subsidy removal.
He wrote: “With the most incredible humility, this is a massive contradiction, my friends and comrades in NLC. You officially adopted Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate, as your candidate at the elections, and he also vowed to remove subsidy on PMS. YOU DID NOT PUBLICLY DISASSOCIATE YOURSELF THEN FROM HIS POSITION. I called out NLC through a statement I issued and warned about the moral burden of adopting such a candidate when you are opposed to subsidy removal. Nobody listened to me; I knew a day like this would come.
“Now, you have the moral burden of reconciling your positions on this issue; though I can vouch for your patriotism, you must convince the nation that your job now is not political since your candidate lost at the election.
“I also urge you to re-think your position because subsidy presently gulps about N300 billion every month, and this economy cannot simply sustain this.
“What I think we should be talking about is a significant increase in the minimum wage (and all significant adjustments) and an immediate identification of massive infrastructural developments in all regions of this country to where the money saved will be channelled immediately. Naturally, this will create more jobs, to the delight of NLC.
“We also need to convince the people that the money saved will not go into unnecessary recurrent expenditure. The earlier these discussions start, the better, but subsidy has to go.”
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