President Bola Tinubu has explained his decision to remove the fuel subsidy and abolish multiple foreign exchange rates as measures to grow the economy and promote national development. In a national broadcast addressing ongoing nationwide protests, Tinubu said these painful decisions were necessary to block the greed and profits that smugglers and rent-seekers were exploiting.
He emphasized that this move stopped undue subsidies that Nigeria had extended to neighboring countries, which had weakened the economy. Tinubu described the Nigerian economy as anaemic for decades, suffering from misalignments that stunted growth.
“Just over a year ago, our dear country, Nigeria, reached a point where we couldn’t afford to continue using temporary solutions to solve long-term problems for the sake of now and our unborn generations,” Tinubu stated. “These decisions I made were necessary if we must reverse the decades of economic mismanagement that didn’t serve us well.”
Acknowledging the responsibility of his role, Tinubu assured the nation of his commitment to delivering good governance. He highlighted his administration’s achievements over the past 13 months, including reducing the revenue spent on debt servicing from 97 percent to 68 percent.
“We have also cleared legitimate outstanding foreign exchange obligations of about five billion dollars without any adverse impact on our programs. This has given us more financial freedom and room to spend more money on you, our citizens, to fund essential social services like education and healthcare,” Tinubu added.
He also noted that state and local governments have received the highest allocations ever in Nigeria’s history from the Federation Account.
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