No country can allow N400bn monthly subsidy payment

A group known as The Natives has said that no country can consistently allow N400 billion monthly to a few Nigerians in the name of subsidy.

It said, rather, that the N400 billion per month could be invested in “one million jobs, the digital economy, health, infrastructure, agriculture, education, and incentives.”

President Bola Tinubu declared on Monday that there was no provision for fuel in his administration.

“We commend the decision of the outgoing administration in phasing out the petrol subsidy regime, which has increasingly favoured the rich more than the poor. Subsidy can no longer justify its ever-increasing costs in the wake of drying resources. We shall instead re-channel the funds into better investment in public infrastructure, education, health care, and jobs that will materially improve the lives of millions,” the President said.

The leader of the group, Smart Edwards, while addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Abuja, said it would never allow anyone to reinstate subsidy which it described as sabotage of citizens’ livelihoods.

The group, therefore, called on the President to give no restraint to the immediate revocation of any licence of saboteurs and deal decisively with any attempt to make life unbearable for citizens by any beneficiary of a subsidy or its removal.

It stressed that it would engage the President meaningfully to ensure that this country is governed under the rule of law and for the prosperity of all Nigerians.

The group stressed that the first burden on the nation was to free the nation from those who held it hostage by fleecing the country’s resources and impoverishing the people.

He said: “We want to state clearly that as citizens of Nigeria, we asked for it, and we will not postpone any doomsday. As a matter of fact, there is no doom.

“We asked every candidate for the removal, we demanded it from the past government, we were assured it will never go beyond June, we formed a coalition for the sector; we got the assurance of Asiwaju, Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the political parties, and former President Muhammadu Buhari; we asked the Ministry of Finance; we demanded it from former President Muhammadu Buhari; we asked the Ministry of Finance. We demanded it from NNPC Ltd. We gathered civil society for it, and we knew it was coming; it will end in June, and we will never allow anyone to reinstate this sabotage of our livelihoods.”