More than two decades after the Occupy Nigeria protest caused by fuel subsidy removal,
debate and conversation around it still continues. In October 2022, when former president, Muhammadu Buhari,
presented the 2023 budget to the National Assembly, Buhari announced that the subsidization of petrol would end by June 2023, arguing that the scheme was unsustainable. The then-minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, explained that the federal government had
projected to spend N6.7 trillion on petrol subsidy payments for the year 2023 but that the amount had been reduced to N3.35 trillion to fund the subsidy till June 2023. In April 2023, however, Ahmed announced that the administration had suspended the removal of the subsidy. However, since the subsidy was not in the latter part of the 2023 budget, the responsibility fell on President Bola Tinubu to either go with the original plan of his predecessor or to provide a supplementary budget that would cover fuel subsidy. He chose the former.
Comments
Sign in to comment.