Instant removal of subsidy killing Nigerians – Legal practitioner says

A legal practitioner, Barr. Lawrence Anyia has said the immediate removal of petroleum subsidy by President Bola Tinubu was done without considering the after effect on the masses, saying a gradual removal would have been in the best interest of the populace.

Anyia said President Tinubu would have assembled his economic team to look into the resultant effect before considering the removal.

Speaking while interacting with our correspondent recently in Jos, Anyia said he is not against removal of the subsidy since it has been established to be a scam, but that a systematic removal would have been better, rather than an instant one.

According to him: “Removal of Subsidy would have been a systematic removal, a gradual process, so that the marginal effect will not be felt. But a sudden departure from what it was to what it is right now is bound to create this crisis.

“It was wrong for Tinubu to have removed the subsidy instantly.

“The President didn’t think of the spiral inflation that the economy was going to witness because upon removal of subsidy the price of PMS skyrocketed.

“Also, the transportation of produce from the hinterland to the urban centers went up. The increment affected sales of goods and services without a corresponding increase in wages.

“It affected the national psyche of Nigerians and even the exchange rate shot up. So all sectors of the economy were affected.

“Tinubu would have sat down with his economic team and agreed on what to put in place before the removal, so as to fashion out modalities that will cushion the effect of the hardship that will naturally arise upon its removal.

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“It was after he stopped the payment of subsidy that he began to announce palliatives.

“Palliatives will not cushion the effects of the prices of goods that have risen and in this country when the prices of commodities go up they don’t come down”, he said.

Anyia decried that it was after the President had announced the removal of subsidy on the day of his inauguration speech, that his speech writers began to defend him saying that the issue of subsidy removal was not part of his speech.

His speech writers said it was something the President said on the spur of the moment, the legal practitioner said.

On the Ministerial nominees recently presented to the Senate, Anyia said that he would have advocated for fresh blood rather than the recycling of old politicians who brought the country to the bad state of where it is today.

“There are young intellectuals and entrepreneurs President Tinubu could have appointed as Ministers”, he said.