President Bola Tinubu didn't get rid of the fuel subsidy, according to Festus Keyamo, the APC's chief spokesperson for the presidential campaign.
He asserts that a portion of the media is "mischievously twisting the narrative to read that Tinubu's government has removed subsidy," despite the fact that President Tinubu said that subsidy was gone during his inaugural speech on May 29.
The 2023 Appropriations Act, which goes into effect in June 2023, and the Petroleum Industry Act, which is now in effect, both lack provisions for subsidies, according to Keyamo, a former minister of state for labor, who preferred to say that Tinubu's administration merely inherited a system in which these provisions did not exist.
"A section of the Press is mischievously twisting the narrative to read that Tinubu's government has removed subsidy," he wrote in a series of tweets on his Twitter account, @fkeyamo. That can't be right. The Petroleum Industry Act, which is currently in effect, and the 2023 Appropriation Act, which were both in effect as of June 2023, lacked any provisions for subsidies. Tinubu's administration essentially inherited this situation.
"President Tinubu just acknowledged this situation in his statement at the Eagle Square inaugural ceremony.
"Therefore, any supporter of subsidies must persuade Nigerians as to why President Tinubu should begin by vowing to reinstate a practice that the law has outlawed. Additionally, they need to persuade the Nigerian people as to why President Tinubu should engage in a current criminal activity that will consume $10 billion of our limited or nonexistent resources in 2022 alone."
He continued by stating that individuals claiming to stand up for the rights or welfare of employees should persuade Nigerians that the $10 billion annually invested in the economy will not be sufficient to revive the economy and create a significant number of jobs, let alone raise the same minimum wage they complain about.