Former Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, stated that fuel subsidy has returned, but many Nigerians are unaware of this.
Speaking to reporters in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, on Monday, El-Rufai mentioned that the federal government is now spending more than before on fuel subsidy.
He noted that the measures put in place to lessen the impact of fuel subsidy were not effective, leading to the reversal of the policy.
President Bola Tinubu had initially announced the removal of fuel subsidy in his inaugural speech, stating that it was no longer justifiable.
However, El-Rufai, who supported the policy, mentioned that the government had to make necessary adjustments.
“Fuel subsidy is another policy that has been implemented by the president, it’s the right policy. I always supported withdrawing fuel subsidy.”
“But, in the course of implementation as you can see the government has now realized that the subsidy has to be back because right now, we are paying a lot of money for subsidy even more than before.
“This is because the impact has been seen and the packages of support that would reduce the impact have not been so effective in reducing the impact, so the federal government is back now subsidizing Petrol.”
He held that many people don’t know that fuel subsidy is back, “but, if they want to know whether we are subsidizing or not, they should compare the price of petrol and diesel because petrol should be more expensive than diesel but diesel is priced above a thousand naira while petrol is at N600 per liter.
“So, we are still subsidizing Petrol because the government has realised that they way it implemented the fuel subsidy initially required some adjustments. That’s what I keep saying about policy and policy pragmatism,” he said.
El-Rufai had earlier presented a paper titled: “Leadership and Public Policy: Navigating Challenges and Lessons”, at the Capacity-building workshop for Senior Government Officials of Borno State.