Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon has applauded President Tinubu for standing firm over the removal of the subsidy by the Buhari administration.
Recall that on May 29, President Tinubu announced that the Buhari administration did not make provisions for petrol subsidy for the month of June till December 2023 and that the subsidy regime is gone for good. His announcement has caused crisis across Nigeria as petroleum pump price has gone up and some parts of the country have witnessed fuel scarcity.
In an interview with Vanguard newspaper, Obahiagbon reacted to the subsidy removal.
‘’I’m maniacally bewildered that the righteous position of Mr President on subsidy has generated some verbal animadversion from some censorious analysts. What did the President say that was new? Mr President only gave a Presidential obiter dictum to what was already a self-fulfilling reality. It just goes to demonstrate the fact that we are our problems in this country. (Most people knew subsidy would be removed so President Tinubu merely did the obvious)”he said
When asked to react to comments by some Nigerians who argue that President Tinubu shouldn’t have said the subsidy is gone as his comment created the chaos and panic, Obahiagbon said;
‘’It verges on hair-splitting and sciamachy for critiques to go to town calumniating Mr President as being culpable for the pandemonium that greeted his statement when he said at the presidential inauguration that the regime on subsidy has come to an end. He was only echoing a legal reality that the Buhari government has enthroned. Has there not been regular chaos in this aspect of our lives before Mr President’s statement? There was no basis for the chaos following his speech since this was a situation the nation was well aware of. Let us blame our mephistophelian profiteers, philistine carpet baggers and prebendal homo-sapiens. What we need right now is an audacious leader capable of providing himself as a political minesweeper and taking the big decisions. So from that point of view, Mr President’s asseveration on the subsidy indaba was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (What he means is that Tinubu’s decision on subsidy is great but we should blame profiteers for the initial chaos)”