Tinubu Inherited A Bleeding, Dead Economy. Buhari Borrowed Massively – Onanuga

According to the rejoinder written by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy and made available to correspondents on Sunday, fuel subsidy regime had gulped $84.39 billion between 2005 and 2022 while the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) amassed trillions of naira in debts for absorbing the unsustainable subsidy payments.

The presidency added: “To be sure, President Tinubu did not create the economic problems Nigeria faces today. He inherited them.

“As a respected economist in our country once put it, Tinubu inherited a dead economy. The economy was bleeding and needed quick surgery to avoid being plunged into the abyss, as happened in Zimbabwe and Venezuela. This was the background to the policy direction taken by the government in May/June 2023: the abrogation of the fuel subsidy regime and the unification of the multiple exchange rates.

“For decades, Nigeria had maintained a fuel subsidy regime that gulped $84.39 billion between 2005 and 2022 from the public treasury in a country with huge infrastructural deficits and in high need of better social services for its citizens. The state oil firm, NNPC, the sole importer, had amassed trillions of naira in debts for absorbing the unsustainable subsidy payments in its books.