Tinubu doesn’t sleep until 5 am, deserves praise for petrol subsidy removal – Dare

The Special Adviser to the President on Public Communications and Orientation, Sunday Dare, has argued that President Bola Tinubu deserves commendation for summoning the courage to remove the subsidy on petrol.

Dare, a former Sports and Youth Development Minister under immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari, stressed that the petrol subsidy had overstayed its usefulness, faulting previous administrations for keeping the policy in place.

Besides the subsidy, he also urged Nigerians to appreciate Tinubu for other policies of his administration rather than deriding him due to the prevailing pain and hardship resulting from the reforms.

“You know, the subsidy was draining this country. A few hundred were making billions out of it. Every president said they would stop subsidies. None of them did. Let’s give this man some credit. We might not like it,” Dare said on Thursday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.

Tinubu says the subsidy is gone

Recall the President declared an end to the subsidy regime on his first day of office, stating in his inauguration speech that ‘subsidy is gone.’ He also later floated the currency to bring an end to years of multiple foreign exchange windows operated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The twin policies, among other reforms of the current administration, have triggered a rise in the cost of essential goods and commodities as petrol prices skyrocketed from N185 per litre to now over N1,000 across the country.

However, Dare insisted that the President is working round the clock to fix the issues and make good on his promises to the Nigerian people.

“Tinubu is adept at governance. [He is] a man who burns the midnight oil when other men of easy virtue are carousing around,

“This is a man I worked with for seven years and we sleep at 4 5, 6 in the morning,” the former minister of sports and youth development said.

The new Presidential spokesman further argued that the fuel subsidy removal and other reforms by the Tinubu government are audacious moves, saying that his principal took the “road less travelled” by rolling out those policies.

In August, protests erupted across the country over harsh economic conditions, which have eroded the purchasing power of millions of citizens.

There was another nationwide demonstration in October, all intended to push the President to reverse some of the policies.

Although Tinubu acknowledged the difficulties posed by the reforms, he has stuck to his gun, insisting that the measures were necessary to reposition the economy while appealing to Nigerians to be patient.