To its credit, the Administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari had already set in motion the steps for a post-subsidy regime in Nigeria, with the historic Presidential Assent to the long-overdue Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), the ongoing total overhaul of Port Harcourt and Warri Refineries, and the significant government support provided to push the 650,000bpd Dangote Refinery project to fruition.
In my view, this is ‘progressive continuity’ at work. And this is also the time to send a strong reminder to Nigerians, that this is exactly what they voted for – the end of petrol subsidies, and the replacement with a new system that has no room for rent-seekers and economic saboteurs; a system that allows the trillions of naira that used to go into petrol subsidies to instead be channeled into more productive areas of the economy.
