A former Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Kyari Bukar, says President Bola Tinubu should have removed petrol subsidy gradually to lessen the effect on Nigerians.
He opined that fuel prices should have been removed by 5% every six months and that way, the public won’t quickly feel it.
Bukar, the Managing Partner at Trans-Saharan Investment Corporation, stated this when he featured on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme on Channels Television on Friday.
“When you are making policies for the economy, the participant in that economy, their input is important,” he said.
“When you come with a policy that is detrimental to the economy, they will leave or find ways to avoid or overcome the policy.”
The former NESG chairman said, “There’s a lot of anxiety in the country. Economically speaking, there is a lot of hunger, and people have become violent and they are saying things that they ought not be saying, and all of those are tied to a few policy stances: the fuel subsidy removal and the harmonisation of the exchange rates.
“Both of them are good policies if it had been done in a more informed manner. My take on fuel subsidy removal is to truly remove fuel subsidy gradually over a period of time.
“The unintended consequences of those policy pronouncements should have been studied and those recommendations shared with Mr President before he goes on the podium to say it. Something was missing in all honesty.
“The vision might be right but the approach in implementation or execution was horrible.”
The President removed petrol subsidy during his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, with the pump price of petrol jumping from around N200 to over N1,000, couple with attendant inflation. The administration also unified the exchange rate also the same time with forex rising from about N700 per dollar at the black market to over N1,600 at both official and parallel market.