During his first presidential media chat on Monday, December 24, President Bola Tinubu said he has no remorse about removing the fuel subsidy.
“Nigeria was spending its future and was not investing,” Tinubu said. “We were spending the fortune of our future generations, we were not investing. We were just deceiving ourselves. That reform was necessary. Why should you have expenditures that we don’t have revenue for?”
The president stressed the importance of resource management in all national programs. “We should teach management in all our programmes, we have to manage our resources," he stated.
Additionally, Tinubu criticized the old system of subsidies for letting Nigerian fuel benefit its neighbors at the expense of Nigeria. “There is no way you give out fuel and allow all the entire neighbouring countries as Father Christmas. I don’t have regret whatsoever removing the subsidy. It is necessary. We cannot spend our future generation investments upfront,” he concluded.