By Ada Obeleagu, YeyeNews.com, November 26, 2021
The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, has assured Nigerians that anyone who can survive the first three months of the removal of petrol subsidy will develop a tough skin to deal with the hardship in the country. The minister made the comment while addressing members of the press during the weekly ministerial briefing at the ministry’s secretariat in Abuja attended by YeyeNews.com reporter.
According to the minister, “Though the economic situation in the country is perilous but Nigerians are coping. After the petrol subsidy removal, things will definitely get worse so we urge everyone to tighten their belt. Government will provide a palliative of N5000 for forty million poor people for three months to cushion the effects of the economic devastation that will follow the removal of subsidy. But the president believes that everybody that will survive the first three months will adapt to the suffering”.
The minister further explained that the government will disburse N2.4tn as palliative to Nigerians instead of paying N1.8tn in petrol subsidy. She said that “the N1.8tn paid in subsidy benefits the rich people more than the poor. So government will scrap that and instead spend N2.4tn as palliative for the poor. Though this money will not have any significant effect due to the large number of poor people in the country but it is better than nothing. Nigerians should appreciate this kind gesture by president Buhari”.
A source in the presidency revealed to YeyeNews.com that the thinking within the presidency is that if Nigerians can continue to buy cooking gas and food items despite the astronomical increase in their prices, then they can also afford to buy petrol in a deregulated market. “Cooking gas price has increased by almost 200% since the beginning of the year. Nigerians still buy it after grumbling and complaining. Go to the markets now you will see people buying food items in large quantities despite the purported price increases. This shows that Nigerians have money to afford high patrol prices. If the effect is too much on them, then they should learn to manage”, the presidency source said.
But YeyeNews.com survey shows that Nigerians are increasingly falling into poverty on daily basis. A recent world bank report shows that over a hundred million Nigerians fell into poverty in 2020 alone. “Though the government continues to deny these statistics but the reality on the ground is stark. Even the president’s yearly budget for food has increased by over 200% in the last 5 years. The president can afford that because he is being fed with taxpayers money. But how does he expect ordinary Nigerians to survive this level of inflation? And things will definitely get worse after the removal of subsidy”, an economic expert Dapo Olusola told YeyeNews.com reporter.
