By simon kolawole It took me less than one hour into President Bola Tinubu’s administration to spot a giant red flag. His famous words at the inauguration, “subsidy is gone”, instantly set off an alarm in my head. In my article on it, ‘Why (Most) Nigerians Oppose Subsidy Removal’ (June 4, 2023), I wrote: “With all of Tinubu’s experience in government, I thought a presidential pronouncement on such a very sensitive and emotive topic could have been better managed.
” My worry, on hearing his declaration, was that it lacked strategic thinking and it was going to create chaos everywhere as there would be panic buying. Little did I know that chaos was going to be the core administrative model of his government. To start with, President Muhammadu Buhari budgeted for petrol subsidy for only the first half of the year.
It went without saying that from July 2023, subsidy would be gone — unless his successor decided to retain it. Why, then, was Tinubu in a hurry to announce the death of subsidy one full month ahead of schedule? The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, aka NNPCL, quickly issued a statement to “clarify” that the announcement would take effect from July, but it was a waste of time. That would only lead to hoarding and hardship.
A couple of days later, NNPCL announced a new price of N488/litre in Lagos, up from N185. In other parts of Nigeria, it was as high as N557. When Tinubu made the ill-advised Eagle Square declaration, the price of crude oil .
