Dapo Abiodun meets Obasanjo, says ‘Nigeria loses N4trillion annually to subsidy’

Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun on Tuesday held a closed-door meeting with former President Olusegun Obasanjo at his Penthouse residence, located at Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, the state capital.

Abiodun, who arrived at the former President’s residence at 11.58 am, went straight into a private meeting with him.

Emerging from the closed-door meeting, Abiodun described the meeting as a private one.

He said, “It is a private meeting. A son does not have to have any particular reason to come and see his father, so I have come to see our baba and it is a private meeting”.

Speaking on fuel subsidy removal, Abiodun lamented that, Nigeria lost N4trillion annually to the subsidy regime, insisting that there was no better time to remove the subsidy than now.

The governor assured Nigerians that, the government would put into better use the money accrued from the subsidy removal to revamp the economy of the country.

“We all know that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration started with a bang. On the 29th of May, he reeled out a few initiatives, one of the most laudable of those initiatives was his decision to remove subsidies on petroleum products.

“As controversial as that initiative has been, no one can deny the fact that it was a very welcome initiative. That was a subsidy that Nigeria could no longer afford, it was a subsidy that was not in the budget beyond June 2023.

“More importantly, it was costing Nigeria about N4trillion per annum, N4trillion that Nigeria did not have, that we have to borrow, that could be better expended to other uses that the common man can feel, so it was a very right decision.

“Of course, it was a decision that also came with a bit of pain, but like they say, there is no gain without some pain”, Abiodun said.

He urged Nigerians to endure the hardship of increasing fuel price, saying the benefits of the subsidy removal outweigh the pain.

The governor said, his administration had reelled out series of palliatives for civil servants, pensioners and the people of the state to cushion the effect of subsidy removal.

Part of palliatives included the approval for the payment of N10,000 cash for each public servants and pensioners in the state.

The government also approved payment of hazard allowance for all health and medical personnel in the State, adding that the implementation of the palliative would take effect from July.

Speaking on the palliatives, Abiodun said, “What you saw us announced for implementation in Ogun state yesterday (Monday) are part of the initiatives that the Federal government has designed for implementation at the state level.

“What we have just done is to immediately begin that implementation because as soon the President announced deregulation, we sat down with members of our labour unions – TUC, NLC and JNC to discuss the different options that will be acceptable for all of us, that will allow us to fast track our own policies.

“We believe that these initiatives should immediately ameliorate the pain our people are feeling and I’m sure that you will see that other state governments are doing the same.”