President Bola Tinubu stated he has no regrets about removing the petrol subsidy during his first presidential media chat on Monday, December 24.
Tinubu emphasized that the subsidy was detrimental to Nigeria’s economic future, describing it as an unsustainable expenditure.
“Nigeria was spending its future and was not investing,” Tinubu said. “We were spending the fortune of our future generations, we were not investing. We were just deceiving ourselves. That reform was necessary. Why should you have expenditures that we don’t have revenue for?”
The president stressed the importance of resource management in all national programs. “We should teach management in all our programmes, we have to manage our resources,” he stated.
Tinubu also criticized the previous subsidy system for allowing Nigeria’s fuel to benefit neighboring countries at Nigeria’s expense. “There is no way you give out fuel and allow all the entire neighbouring countries as Father Christmas. I don’t have regret whatsoever removing the subsidy. It is necessary. We cannot spend our future generation investments upfront,” he concluded.