Martin Onovo, a petroleum engineer and the National Conscience Party presidential candidate during the 2015 election, said that fuel subsidy removal is wasteful if the importation of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, persists in Nigeria.
Onovo disclosed this on Thursday during an interview on Channels Television monitored by Media Talk Africa.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, said the Federal Government would remove fuel subsidies before June.
But, Onovo has insisted that the country is about to go into another circle of waste.
He explained that the Nigerian government has embarked on fuel subsidy removal at least 20 times in the last 40 years with no economic benefit to the country.
He said subsidy removal would further shut down inflation, leading to Naira devaluation, a precursor for another subsidy.
He stressed that Nigeria must stop the importation of fuel products by revigorating its local refinery capacity.
“Nigeria has no reason to import petroleum or domestically refined petroleum products. A subsidy is mainly for imported products; let me tell you, do not justify the subsidy removal error because there is a mob mentality now; the majority want to move in that direction. It is the wrong direction; Nigeria has done it over 20 times in the last 40 years, the last one was in 2016, and Nigerians celebrated. Let me explain that once the subsidy is removed today, inflation and devaluation follow, and you will now need another subsidy. As long as we are still importing, the fuel subsidy removal is wasteful”, he said
