The Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the 2023 election, Dumebi Kachikwu, has declared that if elected Nigerian President in 2027, he will restore fuel subsidy.
He also stated that his administration would revise some policies of the current government to ease the economic burden on ordinary Nigerians.
Speaking in an interview on Saturday, Kachikwu explained that subsidy itself is not a bad policy but should be properly managed.
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He insisted that the burden of mismanagement should not be transferred to the masses.
“Poor Nigerians shouldn’t be forced to pay the price of our inefficiencies or our inability to manage a subsidy system,” he said.
According to him, only a few Nigerians have abused the scheme, stressing that the appropriate step should have been to punish offenders rather than remove the policy entirely.
“The right thing to do is not to stop the scheme but to go after the corrupt individuals, prosecute them to the full extent of the law and bring sanity into the system,” Kachikwu stated.
He, however, cautioned against attributing the removal of fuel subsidy to President Bola Tinubu, noting that the policy change had already been set in motion under the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
“He didn’t remove the fuel subsidy. We must be careful about saying that the President removed fuel subsidies on the day of inauguration,” Kachikwu argued.
The ADC chieftain explained that the Buhari government failed to make budgetary provisions for fuel subsidy, leaving Tinubu with no option but to announce the policy’s discontinuation.
“A lot of people rightfully or wrongfully believe that he was the one that removed subsidies. No, President Buhari didn’t provide the subsidy,” he added.
