President Bola Tinubu who championed protests to reverse fuel subsidy removal under his ex-president Goodluck Jonathan in 2012, has urged Nigerians to abort plans to stage demonstrations across the nation over lingering economic hardship under his watch.
Mr Tinubu, according to minister of information Mohammed Idris, met with organisers of the protest on Tuesday and asked them to shelve the planned protest.
The President argued that the protest was unnecessary and asked for more time to enable his administration to address the people’s concerns.
“The issue of the planned protest, Mr President does not see any need for that. He’s asked them to shelve that plan. He’s asked them to await the government’s response to all their pleas,” the minister told journalists at the State House on Tuesday.
Nigerians were planning to stage nationwide protests on August 1 against skyrocketing inflation and forex volatility which have drastically reduced their purchasing power. .
Mr Tinubu’s economic policies which include unifying the exchange rate on the official and parallel markets, elimination of fuel subsidy and currency devaluation had driven the nation’s economy to cusp of collapse.
The National Bureau of Statistics pegged the nation’s current inflation rate at 34 per cent to the horror of Nigerians barely surviving with a minimum wage of N30,000.
Ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s plan to scrap the fuel subsidy and jerk prices from N65 per litre was met with criticisms and #OccupyNigeria protests backed by political heavy weights such as Mr Tinubu who tagged the subsidy removal “Jonathan’s tax.”
“The people will become enslaved to greater misery. This crisis will bear his name and will be his legacy. The people now pay a steep tax for voting him into office. The removal of the subsidy is the ‘Jonathan tax’,” Mr Tinubu wrote in an opinion piece in 2012.
Mr Tinubu turned around to scrap the subsidies he condemned in 2024.
