Since the removal of the fuel subsidy by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the administration has flip-lopped in the reasons behind the removal and on continuous basis churn out policies and promises that have defied flying, making some to believe that the government of the day is on self delusion in the suspicious efforts to fix the country
By Miracle Egbo
The immortal poet of our time, Christopher Okigbo in one of his famous lines asked:” How many million promises can ever fill a basket?” Nigerians are asking how many lies of the current administration would fill a basket. This question became imperative as Nigerians are being assailed on daily basis by promises that have not been kept by this administration since inception. Even as the President of the country, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s score-sheet in Government House Ikeja, Alausa Lagos State does not give perspective watchers any slim hope that a performer is presently the president of the country. President Tinubu’s strength ostensibly lies in his wily ways and the bridge- building with the powerful. His perfunctory policies and decision geared towards alleviating the sufferings wrought on Nigerians by the removal of the fuel subsidy betrayed the capacity deficit of the hitherto overrated President Tinubu.
Facts choreographed by this medium revealed that most of the policies churned out since his ascension to the office of presidency in the country, President Tinubu has consultation deficit in dishing out some of the policies that he had churned out for the past four months or thereabout. The first causality of his truth deficit is the removal of the fuel subsidy. In his inauguration as the president of the country he told the bewildered electorate that subsidy is gone forever. Facts escalated by this medium revealed that the same subsidy is back through the back door. According to an informed source, the price of the fuel would have risen to N1, 000.00 but the same subsidy that the administration of President Tinubu said it is gone forever.
In one of numerous trips abroad he went to the United Arab Emirate, and on return he announced to Nigerians that he had been able to persuade UAE to lift the Visa ban on Nigerians and encouraged them to resume flight into the country. As at the time of filing this report it has been discovered according to information at the disposal of Tentacle that UAE has not lifted any Visa ban on the citizens of the country, and the flight is yet to resume.
Since the removal of the subsidy, the administration has equally announced that it has saved One Trillion naira from subsidy but no impact of the money on the economy, worse still, the money saved could not be deployed for the suspicious palliative for Nigerians. In one breath, the administration is saying that the money saved is tied to the GDP, the technicalities employed to shift the focus of Nigerians from the money saved to something else is a deceit which appears to be the signature of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC for the eight years and some months now. It is on record that the administration had before now told Nigerians that it going to give each state the sum of N5 billion which the states would distribute to the electorate or citizens. Information monitored from Aso Rock by this medium revealed that most of the states that have received the money did in trickle but has not been impactful on the lives of the citizens.
An administration that sheepishly boasted that “petrol subsidy is gone” is, according to an informed source, still mired in the subsidy regime while living a lie. It is equally a mark of formidable lie-telling that a large entourage of Nigerian officials sent to the United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, in New York at the prodding of tax payers monies was based on fiction, according to information, that President Joe Biden will indulge them in discussion. Smarting from the fiction of having a discussion with President Biden, one is still at loss on how to explain the bloomer about the first African President to ring a bell at the New York Stock Exchange. The Déjà vu of the spin doctors of the administration in retracting the message to this effect could not deodorize the stench of the foul smell that such lies oozed in Nigeria and beyond.
It was gathered that as Nigeria currency is in a free fall, the price of importing fuel has gone beyond the present price that it is being dispensed, the administration of President Tinubu has no choice but to continue to subsidize the product to stop the price from hitting the roof top as the importers of the products groaned under the merciless weak naira. Investigation at the disposal of this medium revealed that a liter of fuel is imported at the price of N900, and there is no way the price would still remain N570 to 600 in Lagos State or 670 in other parts of the country, and for the price regime to remain, the administration had through the back door, according to Aso Rock source succumbed to the subsidy regime which it rued before now.
An informed source maintained that all the promises made by the administration at the event of the subsidy removal have been observed at breach. The devaluation of naira has further weakened whatever palliative that the administration designed to cushion the effect of the supposedly removed fuel subsidy. According to them, prices of goods have skyrocketed that no amount of money the government will dish out could sustain a family of four in a country where a bag of rice, one of the staple food in the country, goes as high as N50, 000.00, and the palliative money is pegged at N25, 000.00 per month for the period of six months. “We are a huge joke in the comity of nations. I am afraid that we are going the way of Venezuela in terms of our currency, our currency is just now a piece of paper of no value both home and abroad”, offered the source.
