Tinubu’s Subsidy Removal Announcement Ill-timed – SDP Presidential Candidate, Adebayo

The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the February 25 general election, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has described as untidy and ill-timed President Bola Tinubu’s announcement of the fuel subsidy removal during his inaugural speech.

Adebayo in a statement said it might appear to early to criticise the new president, having just been sworn into office, but Tinubu should be reminded that the occasion of his inaugural speech was not the best avenue to have announced the suspension of such a macroeconomic policy.

He insisted that Nigerians would need a shock absorber in form of alternative measures to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal before any action could be taken in that direction.

Adebayo wondered if that was what Nigerians would get from the much touted renewed hope. He said, “I don’t want to seem impatient or trigger happy in criticism of brandy new president Tinubu.

“But it is not a neat way to announce a cost driven macroeconomic policy of fuel subsidy removal by just dropping it in an inaugural speech. We need shock absorbers first. Renewed hope?”

Meanwhile, Adebayo, over the weekend, called on Nigerians to unite among themselves in order to make the elite accountable to them.

He noted that politicians are highly united through various interests like business, politics, and marriage, unlike the people who are only united by problems.

According to him, “The people who need unity most are the Nigerian people. Politicians don’t need unity because they already have it. Politicians are highly united.

“You will see today that Godswill Akpabio’s campaign manager for the senate presidency is President Tinubu because Akpabio did everything against all odds to support his presidential ambition.

“Former Governor Nyesome Wike is united with Tinubu. Ganduje was talking like a jilted lover when he heard that Kwankwaso had gone to see his friend, Tinubu in Paris, France. The political elites have ways of coming together.

“You saw Peter Obi and others coming together to celebrate Aliko Dangote when he commissioned his refinery. They do businesses together, and their children inter marry.

“The people who need advice on unity are the people in our neighbourhood, so that they don’t start insulting and fighting their neighbours over politics and then segregating themselves.

“Right now, if I call Peter Obi that I have a headache and he sees my number, he will pick it immediately. If I tell him that I have a headache and my family isn’t with me and need him to send a vehicle to pick me up, he will not only send me a car, but if he is around, he might come and pick me up.

“However Igbo you are, If I want something from Peter Obi, he is more likely to give me before he gives to you because he doesn’t know you. The unity between the two of us has been established. The elites are already united. It is the people who shouldn’t be fooled.

“They should also unite to ensure that the elites are accountable to them. We are already united by our problems because we are all suffering from inflation, which doesn’t discriminate.

“We are suffering from the corruption of the government. When police harass people, they don’t choose whom to harass based on ethnicity. When accident occur on the road because it is poorly maintained, it doesn’t happen to just one person.”