Former Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, has faulted President Bola Tinubu’s fuel subsidy removal, saying it was “a good reform carried out in the wrong way.”
Speaking on Monday at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) annual conference in Enugu, Ezekwesili argued that Tinubu’s declaration of “subsidy is gone” in May 2023 was hasty and left millions of Nigerians vulnerable.
Her comments echo widespread criticism since Tinubu’s inaugural speech in May 2023, when petrol prices tripled overnight. Transport costs, food inflation, and living expenses have soared ever since.
She said while removing fuel subsidy was necessary, doing so abruptly without safety nets for the poor worsened poverty and triggered runaway inflation.
“You can have the right policies, but if you implement them the wrong way, there will be problems,” she warned.
Ezekwesili, a former World Bank Vice-President, reminded the audience that reforms must be properly sequenced to avoid social upheaval, adding, “Inflation is punishing the populace, and the poor have nowhere to run.”
She charged the judiciary not to entrench prebendal politics, noting that “politics as a pathway to wealth is an anomaly in a country where 133 million people are poor.”
Another panellist, George Etomi, lamented that Nigeria’s judiciary had become less independent under democracy than it was under military regimes, warning of “abuse of the system today.”
Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, who also spoke at the conference, argued that Nigeria must prioritise investment in research and development (R&D) over consumption.
“Four of the five biggest economies in the world are also the highest spenders on R&D. We promoted consumption instead of investment and production. But we are working to correct that,” Tunji-Ojo said.
International bodies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) praised Tinubu’s fuel subsidy removal but also cautioned that without immediate palliatives, millions more Nigerians risked sliding into extreme poverty.
