Protest: Bringing back fuel subsidy will aggravate poverty, NOA DG
Lanre Issa-Onilu, the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), while kicking against the return of fuel subsidy, said it will worsen poverty.
It would be recalled that one of the demands of the #EndBadGovernance protesters is the return of subsidy.
Meanwhile, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his nationwide broadcast on Sunday, ruled out returning the subsidy, saying removing it was painful but necessary for economic growth.
However, the NOA DG, while speaking on Sunrise Daily, Channels Television breakfast programme, on Wednesday, urged Nigerians to map out survival strategies amid the economic fallout of the removal of petrol subsidy.
“Anybody who is making a demand that subsidy removal should be brought back is making an emotional demand, not an economic demand, because you have to also prove that if it is brought back, it will solve the issue of poverty; it will not, it will aggravate it.”
“So, what we should be doing is: How do we survive in spite of the removal?’ We need to promote all the efforts of this government to ensure that we survive without that subsidy.”
He also admitted the trust deficit between leaders and followers in the country due to repeated cases of broken promises over the years.
“It is difficult to talk to a people who have for several years been let down. Nigerians feel let down. The first question they ask you is: ‘Is this another promise that will not be kept?’ So, we must prove to Nigerians that this government is keeping to its promises,” he said.
