With the reduction of the pump price of petrol from N145 to N123.50, may mark the end of the controversial petrol subsidy in Nigeria as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation says there will be no subsidy on petrol by the Federal Government again.
The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari, who disclosed this in Abuja on Monday, said the subsidy on petrol has been removed permanently.
“There is no subsidy…It is zero forever,’’ Kyari said while speaking on an AIT programme, Moneyline.
Kyari was responding to a question on whether the government is still paying subsidy on petrol. “Putting it succintly,” he said, “What I mean is going forward there will be no resort to either subsidy or over recovery of any nature. NNPC will play in the marketplace, it will just be another marketer in the space.”
Fuel subsidy started in Nigeria in January 2012 in the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. Attempt by the government had sparked violent protect and lockdown of the nation by the opposition parties under the aegis of “Ocuppy Nigeria’’. President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2015 raised the pump price from N97 to N145 devoid of protest by the Organized labour and Nigerians.
The Federal Government has mooted the idea of fuel subsidy removal, canvasing its benefits to Nigerians. In the past weeks, the price of crude has slumped in the international market sometimes to all-time $30 per barrel, resulting in the Buhari administration for the first time reducing domestic pump price from N145 to N125 and again last week, further pared down to N123.50.