Fuel Subsidy Balloons To N5.4 Trillion After Removal By President Tinubu – Finance Minister

• 31 Million Nigerians Projected To Be Food Insecure By August 2024
• 133 Million People Face Multidimensional Poverty

The Federal Government has admitted that fuel subsidy expenditures are expected to surge to ₦5.4 trillion in 2024.

The FG noted that the amount compared unfavourably to N3.6 trillion in 2023 and N2.0 trillion in 2022.

The FG also said 31 million Nigerians are projected to be food insecure by August 2024, adding that food inflation is currently at 40.5%, the highest since 1996.

It added that approximately 63.0% of Nigerians (133 million people) face multidimensional poverty.

The Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, made this known on Tuesday during the presentation of the Accelerated Stabilisation and Advancement Plan (ASAP) to President Tinubu at the State House in Abuja.

It would be recalled that President Bola Tinubu upon assuming office last May, implemented the discontinuance of subsidy on petroleum.

Also, the President on April 29, 2024, at the Special World Economic Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said Nigeria would have gone bankrupt if his administration had not discontinued fuel subsidy payments.

He said though the policy came with economic pains, it was in the best interest of Nigerians.

READ: Fuel Subsidy To Gulp N8.43trn If Reintroduced – IMF

But the latest revelation has shown that the federal government is still paying subsidies on petrol.

Meanwhile, a former vice president of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar told Tinubu to stop playing with Nigerians’ intelligence.

Atiku stated that despite the announcement of the abolishment of the fuel subsidy on May 29, 2023, the Tinubu government is still paying under the cover without the knowledge of Nigerians.

He said: “President Bola Tinubu, at his inauguration on May 29, 2023, announced the abolishment of the subsidy on PMS, popularly known as fuel. Ever since it has been a bragging right of Tinubu and officials of his administration. I had in my statement reviewing the one year of the Bola Tinubu administration urged the government to come clean on the actual position of the subsidy policy.

“If the subsidy regime had been characterised by opaqueness, what would we say of a situation where the subsidy is still being paid under the cover without Nigerians in the know? Like millions of Nigerians, I was shocked to learn through media reports that the “government is still supporting downstream consumption.”

The former vice president accused the federal government of paying for fuel subsidies and lying about it, saying that Nigerians deserve better than deception.

He concluded: “Now we know that expenditure on fuel subsidy may reach N5.4 trillion in 2024, compared to the N3.6 trillion spent in 2023, the same year that Tinubu claimed to have abolished fuel subsidy, I wish to restate that Nigeria is not working, and what we have had in a little over a year is a cocktail of trial-and-error economic policies. Paying subsidies and lying about it is nothing to brag about. Nigerians deserve better than this deception.”