The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi has reiterated his support for the removal of subsidy paid on petroleum products, adding however that the measure should come with conditions that should be empirical to the people.
Obi who was accosted on the topic by judicial correspondents as he attended his ongoing election petition case at the Court of Appeal headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, admitted that his support for subsidy removal dates back to the Goodluck Jonathan era when he was a member of the Presidential economic management team.
“If you have followed me very well right from the time I was a member of Jonathan’s economic management team, I consistently maintained that subsidy should be removed because I see it as organized crime. People were just stealing the resources of the country and I showed empirically in my statistical analysis that we are not consuming the amount of fuel they claim we consume”.
The former Anambra state Governor made an analogy of his idea on subsidy removal with what the current development in the country now to strategies in dealing with a tooth ache.
According to him, if a patient approaches a dentist to remove a painful tooth, the dentist is expected to apply a local anesthetic to numb the area around the tooth so that the patient does not feel the pains.
“It’s not the same thing as pulling the tooth forcefully; the pain you feel will be different.
“For me, I will go with the approach of the dentist while supporting the removal of the tooth because I wouldn’t want to go through the pain of forceful removal.
“Recall that even when Jonathan wanted to remove it they came up with various relieving policies like SureP and others.
“If you read my manifesto you will see clearly how I planned to remove subsidy, I will govern with the people and show them statistically and empirically what we are getting and how we are deploying it.
“The problem In Nigeria is that when people say let’s go and suffer, let’s go and sacrifice, they don’t see the results of their suffering and their sacrifice”, he said.