Paying subsidy on petrol is policy pragmatism, says El-Rufai

The only option left to the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to keep the pump price of petrol from soaring was to subsidize, former Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai has said.

El-Rufai, who spoke in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, said the Federal Government now pays more subsidy than before.

He also advised the President not to hesitate in kicking out any of his appointees who failed to deliver on his mandate.

The former governor was quoted by an official of the Presidency in a tweet on his X handle.

On petrol, the former governor said: “Fuel subsidy is another policy that has been implemented by the president, it’s the right policy. I always supported withdrawing fuel subsidy.

“But, in the course of implementation as you can see the government has now realized that the subsidy has to be back because right now, we are paying a lot of money for subsidy even more than before.

“This is because the impact has been seen and the packages of support that would reduce the impact have not been so effective in reducing the impact, so the federal government is back now subsidizing petrol.”

According to him, it remained unknown to many Nigerians that they can afford petrol because of the government intervention, without which, the price could have been higher than that of diesel.

He said: “But, if they want to know whether we are subsidising or not, they should compare the price of petrol and diesel because petrol should be more expensive than diesel but diesel is priced above a thousand naira while petrol is at N600 per liter.

“So, we are still subsidising petrol because the government has realised that the way it implemented the fuel subsidy initially required some adjustments. That’s what I keep saying about policy and policy pragmatism.”

On the non-performing appointees, El-Rufai said there would not be any justification to retain whoever has not added value to the government.

He urged the president to consider the possibility of amending some of his policies that were not yielding the desired results.

El-Rufai said: “You appointed a person into a position and he is not working according to the expectation, you should have the humility to tell him that I need a better person, go and do something else.”

Called for prayers and support from the citizens for the administration in its quest to lift the country to loftier heights, he said: “What we must to do as citizens is to pray for our leaders for God to guide them to see or do what is right; for God to give them the humility to reverse themselves when necessary and do the right thing; that’s how society progresses”.