Fuel subsidy savings eaten up by naira devaluation, Tinubu policies – Falana

Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Femi Falana, has contended that the anticipated savings from the removal of fuel subsidy have been negated by the devaluation of the naira and what he described as the government's neoliberal economic policies. Falana commented on Channels Television's Sunday Politics while addressing the effects of President Bola Tinubu's fuel subsidy elimination policy.

He stated that by the time Tinubu announced on May 29, 2023, that fuel subsidy was ceased, the subsidy had already been discontinued as no funds had been allocated for it in that year's budget. "At the commercial rate, by the time President Tinubu announced in May that fuel subsidy was gone, it had already gone because not a dime was earmarked for subsidy that year," Falana asserted.

He questioned the fate of the projected savings that would have funded fuel imports. "The $10 billion that would have been spent on the importation of fuel, where is it?" Falana inquired. Falana argued that the anticipated savings had been absorbed by the weakening of the naira. "The naira, the exchange rate, has been devalued. So it's been eaten up by devaluation and other neoliberal policies of the government," he remarked.