GOVERNOR Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, yesterday, lamented that Nigeria was losing N4 trillion annually to the subsidy regime, insisting that there was no better time to remove the subsidy than now.
He said this after a closed door meeting with former president Olusegun Obasanjo at his Penthouse residence, located in Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, in Abeokuta.
Abiodun, who arrived the former president’s residence at 11.58am, went straight into a private meeting with him.
Emerging from the closed-door meeting with Obasanjo, Abiodun described it as a private one.
The governor said: “It was a private meeting. A son does not need to have any particular reason to come and see his father, so I have come to see our Baba and it was 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.
He, however, urged Nigerians to endure the hardship of increasing fuel price, saying the benefits of the subsidy removal outweigh the pain.
His words: “We all know that the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration started with a bang. On 29th of May, he reeled out a few initiatives, one of the most laudable of those initiatives was his decision to remove subsidy 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.”