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Fri, Mar

PDP Vice-Presidential Candidate

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The vice-presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi has spit fire on continued petroleum subsidy by the federal government. Mr Obi who stated this on Channel Television Program tagged “Politics Today” on Tuesday said “any serous government” would prefer to spend fuel subsidy fund to development of healthcare and Education to its citizenry rather than what is obtainable.

Obi in his statement said “Go and check the just presented 2019 budget: health is N341 billion and education is about N450 billion. So, if you sum health and education which is the most critical constituent of the development of any economy together, it is N800 billion according to Premium Times.


He opined that paying trillion for subsidy is unacceptable, because it translates to paying for inefficiency, making reference to cumulative spending of Buhari administration since his assumption of office. President Buhari last month proposed N305billion as fuel subsidy for 2019 budget.


Obi postulated similar ground during the recent vice-presidential debate; he called for total removal of subsidy. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo agreed with his stand; however, dismissed their government was wary of its immediate repercussion on Nigerians.


Meanwhile, Mr Obi admitted that its removal will translate to hike in general price of goods and services but it will be for a short time which will later stabilises. Sighting example with GSM saying similar experience was recorded but we will eventually get over it.


Mr, Obi posited that “Part of what we are paying today is the demurrage they pay at the ports. If a vessel comes into our ports to discharge, it takes weeks.


He added that poor management of port is one of the reason for high cost of petrol, which is most imported to Nigeria, noting that, “a trailer that will charge you to bring out your goods from Apapa Port, instead of charging you N200,000 will charge you almost a million because it takes him two weeks to go in and about a week to come out. It doesn’t make sense.”

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