{"id":67649,"date":"2025-06-09T19:30:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T19:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67649"},"modified":"2025-06-09T19:30:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T19:30:56","slug":"fuel-subsidy-should-have-been-removed-gradually-not-abruptly-obi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/09\/fuel-subsidy-should-have-been-removed-gradually-not-abruptly-obi\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel Subsidy Should Have Been Removed Gradually, Not Abruptly -Obi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onyeanya Ebere<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, has said he would have removed fuel subsidy and floated the naira if elected president but would have done so gradually and in a well-planned manner.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking during an interview with Arise Television on Monday, the former Anambra State governor expressed support for the policies of subsidy removal and currency floatation but criticised the implementation by the current administration, describing it as poorly executed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have consistently maintained that I would have removed the fuel subsidy. If you go to my manifesto, it is there, along with the steps I would have taken in an organised manner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is nothing wrong with the removal of fuel subsidy. What is wrong is the haphazard way in which it was announced and implemented,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Obi described the subsidy regime as fraught with \u201ccriminality and corruption\u201d and emphasised the need to end it.<\/p>\n<p>However, he raised concerns about how the current government has utilised the savings from the removal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince we were told that we removed it because we do not want to borrow, and that the funds would allow for investments in critical infrastructure. Billions saved. Where is it? Where has it been invested in critical areas of development?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody knows the critical areas of development: education, health, and pulling people out of poverty. Have any of these three improved? No.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the naira, Obi said he supports floating the currency but stressed the need for adequate preparation, especially in boosting domestic productivity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is nothing wrong with floating and devaluing your currency. You do this when you have productivity,\u201d he said, adding that his administration would have prioritised strengthening the agriculture and manufacturing sectors before floating the currency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn all of this, I would have done the same thing in an organised manner,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n<p>President Bola Tinubu had announced the removal of petrol subsidy during his inauguration on May 29, 2023, a move that led to a sharp increase in fuel prices from N190 to N500 per litre and has since climbed to over N850.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onyeanya Ebere &nbsp; The Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, has said he would have removed fuel subsidy and floated the naira if elected president but would have done so gradually and in a well-planned manner. Speaking during an interview with Arise Television on Monday, the former Anambra State [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":67650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,186],"tags":[302],"class_list":["post-67649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-peter-obi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67651,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67649\/revisions\/67651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}