The presidential candidate of the Action Democratic Congress (ADC) in the 2023 elections, Dumebi Kachikwu has said that former President Muhammadu Buhari handed a banana peel to his successor, President Bola Tinubu by removing the removal of the fuel subsidy for him.
The former president, according to Kachikwu, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, forced the elimination of subsidies onto the newly elected government rather than taking responsibility for it.
“Obviously the President was handed a banana peel by the outgoing President Buhari who failed to provide for subsidy beyond June when he was leaving office. He obviously did not want to deal with that and he pushed on that responsibility to the incoming government.
“We also understand that the Nigerian economy is in tatters, the government doesn’t have the funding and the NNPC is in a state of near comatose. They will crumble if they continue to fund subsidies, they are said to be owed over two trillion naira at the moment. President Tinubu just informed Nigerians of the situation he was meeting,” Kachikwu said.
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He also claimed that although Nigerians were aware that subsidies would not be provided after June, they did not anticipate that any government would wish to handle the issue in the same manner as the current one.
In response to the threat of a strike by Organised Labour over the elimination of fuel subsidies, Kachikwu criticised the labour unions, claiming that they were aware that the government would eliminate the subsidies and that all of the presidential contenders had pledged to do the same but had never objected.
He asked Tinubu to take immediate action to mitigate the effects of subsidy elimination and encouraged the Federal Government to pursue those misusing the system.