The National Orientation Agency, NOA, says poverty will worsen if petrol subsidy is returned, as demanded by #EndBadGovernance protesters.
The Director-General of NOA, Lanre Issa-Onilu, made this statement on Wednesday, urging Nigerians to map out survival strategies amid the economic fallout of the removal of petrol subsidy by the President Bola Tinubu administration.
“Anybody who is making a demand that subsidy removal should be brought back is making an emotional demand, not an economic demand, because you have to also prove that if it is brought back, it will solve the issue of poverty; it will not, it will aggravate it,” Issa-Onilu said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily breakfast show.
“So, what we should be doing is: How do we survive despite the removal?’ We need to promote all the efforts of this government to ensure that we survive without that subsidy.”
Issa-Onilu, a former spokesman for the President’s ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, also admitted the trust deficit between leaders and followers in the country due to repeated cases of broken promises over the years.
“It is difficult to talk to people who have for several years been let down. Nigerians feel let down. The first question they ask you is: ‘Is this another promise that will not be kept?’ So, we must prove to Nigerians that this government is keeping to its promises,” he said.
Recall that during his nationwide broadcast on Sunday, President Bola Tinubu ruled out the return of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, famously known as petrol.