President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has painted the picture of how the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) mismanagement of the nation’s economy has landed the country in seriously mess, even as he reassured the citizens that there would be no more increase in the price of Petrol.
“I will continue to be open to Nigerians on the challenges our nation is facing with respect to the illiquidity in the market, in terms of foreign exchange, as a result of what is now known to have been a gross mismanagement of the Central Bank of Nigeria over the course of several years preceding this time.”
Speaking through his Special Adviser on media and publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, at the Presidential villa, Abuja, today, August 15, the President said that despite the fact that so far, fuel in Nigeria is cheapest amongst the countries in the West Africa sub-region, there would be no longer Increase in the price, which is now between N610 and N617.
“The official position is that there is no increase in prices at this time and that Mr. President is convinced, based on information before him, that we can maintain current pricing without reversing our deregulation policy by swiftly cleaning up existing inefficiencies within the midstream and downstream Petroleum sector.”
President Tinubu warned however, that “we are not yet out of the turnel: there is still a bit of darkness to travel through to get toward the light. And we are pleading with Nigerians to please be patient with us.”
The President said that there are presently inefficiencies within the midstream and downstream petroleum sub sectors, which once very swiftly addressed and cleaned up, “will ensure that we can maintain prices where they are without having to resort to a reversal of this administration’s deregulation policy in the petroleum industry.”
President Tinubu provided a set of graphics, president by the NNPCL, to show the present cost of refined petroleum motor spirit in each of the West African nations that are Nigeria’s neighbours.
The graphics show that in Senegal, pump price today is N1,273 equivalent per liter; Guinea at N1,075 per liter; Côte d’ Ivore at N1,048 per litre equivalent in their currency; Mali N1,113 per litre; Central African Republic N1,414 per litre, saying: “Nigeria is presently averaging between N568 and N630 per litre.
“We are presently the cheapest, most affordable purchasing state in the West African sub-region by some distance. “There is no country that is below N700 per liter.
“We have seen that at the inception of our deregulation policy as of June 1, we have seen PMS consumption in the country drop immediately from 67 million litres per day consumption, down to 46 million litres per day consumption.”
President Tinubu asked all stakeholders in the country to hold their peace.
“We have heard very recently from the organized labour movement in the country with respect to their most recent threat.
“We believe that the threat was premature and that there is a need on all sides to ensure that fact finding and diligence is done on what the current state of the downstream and midstream petroleum industry is before any threats or conclusions are arrived at or issued.”
The President said that he is determined to maintain competitive tension within all sub sectors of the petroleum industry and to ensure that the policy drawn up as well as policy implemented would follow so that there would be no any single one entity dominating the market.
“The market has been deregulated. It has been liberalized and we are moving forward in that direction without looking back.”
THE RIOT ACT.
Removal of subsidy on fuel is here to stay, IRREVERSEBLE!
Pretentious apostles of subsidy scammers and thieves which includes the DISORGANIZED partisan UNREASONABLE labour union should get it into their dumb sculls