The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, has said President Bola Tinubu took the political risk of removing the fuel subsidy in the interest of Nigeria’s long-term economic recovery, despite the immediate hardship and backlash that followed the decision.
Speaking on the government’s economic reforms during an interactive session with members of the All Progressives Congress Press Corps in Abuja on Wednesday, Alake said previous administrations had identified the need to remove the subsidy but repeatedly deferred the decision due to concerns about elections and its political consequences.
Alake, who was recently announced as President Tinubu’s 2027 All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Director of Strategic Communications, said Tinubu, however, chose to “take the bullets” on behalf of Nigerians by implementing the reform, arguing that there was no perfect time to make difficult economic decisions.
According to him, the subsidy regime primarily benefited fuel cartels and wealthy Nigerians, while the government was left with fewer resources to invest in infrastructure and other productive sectors of the economy.
He stated, “There is no shortcut to genuine reforms. I do not need to elaborate on the fact that we knew what the Nigerian economy was before 2023. And I do not need to inform you that all the reforms and the policies that were and are necessary to correct these distortions and contradictions in the Nigerian society were there and identifiable by those previous governments. The only thing lacking was the courage to take those decisions.
“And there is no shortcut. They say, our elders say, when you are in a hole, what do you do? You stop digging. Because the more you dig, the deeper you sink. But because those previous governments lacked the courage to stop digging, for short-term political expedience, they were afraid of elections; they were afraid of bringing them back to office and all that. So they shifted those decisions, the hard decisions they ought to have taken. I recall, and most of you will be aware, many years ago there was this issue of removal of fuel subsidy, which dominated the space in Nigeria.
“And there were protests: subsidies should not be removed; they should be removed. The government at that time knew they were removing them; they should be removed. But the fact of the matter was, it went back on the process of removing them. When there were protests, it backtracked because there was an election coming. And so people swallowed the bitter pill. But somebody came and decided to swallow the bitter pill, to take the bullets on behalf of Nigerians.
