Itsey Sagay has urged the president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to focus on security and resist removing fuel subsidy until refineries are functioning.
While the Federal Government has pegged June 2023 as the date for the removal of fuel subsidy, the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) believes the move should be halted by the incoming administration.
“The first thing is security. We have to secure this country so we can do our farming and go about our businesses without fear. The terrorism [carried out] by these people coming from the forest to destroy us is unbearable. That’s first,” he said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
“The second thing he has to do is with the economy of the country. Petroleum, for example, I do not agree that the subsidy should be removed without us producing refined petrol in this country. Let him not be deceived.
“Anyone telling him to remove subsidy is trying to ground his party and make him unpopular. The subsidy must continue until refineries begin to work. Now, when we start producing petrol in the country, the cost of petroleum products will drop sharply because most of these costs are due to transport.”
On the 2023 election, he described it as one of the best in the country’s history.
“In my personal opinion, in terms of representing the minds and wishes of Nigerians in an election, this is probably the best election we have had,” he added.
“So, we had good elections in 2011, 2015, and 2019. But in terms of representing or interpreting what Nigerians feel, it [2023]is the best election we have ever had,” Sagay maintained.
“If you look at the ways things have gone with the BVAS (Bimordal Voter Accreditation System), the very idea that the APC was defeated in Lagos, that should make you realise immediately that these are very credible elections. If you go through the whole country, it is the same sort of accuracy and reflection on the feelings of Nigerians.”
