LABOUR Party presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, said he would have removed fuel subsidy in a structured and organised manner, unlike the approach adopted by the current administration.

He also said he would have adopted the same structured approach in exchange rate unification(naira devaluation).

Obi spoke on Monday, June 9, with Arise Television about his stance and the step-by-step implementation of the policies, which he agreed were necessary.

“I have consistently maintained that I would have removed the fuel subsidy. If you go to my manifesto, it’s there.

“I would have done it in an organised manner. There was nothing wrong with the removal of the subsidy. What is wrong is the haphazard way in which it was announced and implemented. Everybody knows that the subsidy regime was a solution to criminality. There was a lot of corruption, which they needed to get out of,” Obi said.

He noted that the government promised to remove fuel subsidies and save money to discontinue borrowing and have available funds to invest in critical areas of development.

He, however, questioned the specific sectors the government had put in the subsidy savings.

“With all these things, billions saved, where is it? Where is it invested in those critical areas of development?” he queried.

He stressed further that there was nothing wrong with floating or devaluing the naira, but that the government should have done it when it could boast of having productivity.

“What devaluation or floating does is that your currency becomes, in terms of value, low. You attract investment. Your products become more marketable. But where we are unproductive, you have nothing to sell. So it’s a double whammy. So in all this, I would have done the same thing in an organised manner,” the banker-turned-politician, maintained.

Commenting further on his approach to subsidy implementation, Obi said he would have tackled the criminality associated with it, which he asserted takes over 50 per cent of the issue.

“And then, whatever we’re able to save from it, have a specific place for it for investment.”

“We will have to have a national plan where all the accrued resources from the subsidy removal will be put into,” he further said.

“It is not just something you say, oh, we’re sharing it the way we used to share every other money. No, we should be able to put it in critical areas of development.”

Obi stressed that the promise of the removal of the subsidy has not yielded the expected result, stressing that what people want to see is where the funds are invested.

“It’s a very clear thing. We’re not the only country that has done that before in an organised manner,” he said.

On how he could have approached naira devaluation, Obi maintained that he would have done it in an organised manner.

He said he would have focused on ensuring that the country ramped up production in agriculture, manufacturing, and everything, while gradually implementing naira devaluation.

He argued that even in the so-called currency devaluation, “there was criminality as well.”

“I came from a background of business, banking, everything.So, I know everything that is associated with criminality in all these things, which you can be tightening while trying to do a gradual evolution,” he noted.

Commenting on how he would have improved productivity in the economy, Obi remarked that he could have tackled insecurity to enable increased agricultural productivity.

Lamenting that the network of roads across the country is no longer motorable, he suggested, “You face those roads first and use your resources to secure a country.”

He asked, “Will you provide a road to your village
when you cannot drive to your village? No!

He explained further that if the government acknowledged that insecurity is a problem, Nigerians can’t go to the farm, and there is an electricity challenge, then it should use the resources to deal with those issues.

President Bola Tinubu, on May 29, 2023, declared the fuel subsidy removed, and in July, the Central Bank of Nigeria floated the naira.

These twin policies have further pushed Nigerians into hardship, stifling businesses and the country’s economy. The ICIR has repeatedly been spotlighted.