‘We privatised profits, socialised losses’ – Obi on subsidy removal

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, has described the subsidy policy of the Federal Government as a scam.

Obi who spoke Wednesday morning on the ARISE News television interview, The Morning Show, said the policy is not working and achieving the requisite objective because of lack of transparency on the part of government implementors.

The most interviewed presidential candidate leading up to the 2023 election, said that Nigeria has spent over $40 billion in subsidy, in the past 10 years, arguing that such humungous amount of money would have been channelled into solving the problems of the education, health and security sectors, if properly implemented.

Obi said he would remove subsidy, insisting that Nigerians are not against the removal of subsidy.

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According to him, Nigerians are only sceptical about the proper use of the money from subsidy if removed, as people no longer not trust government on the issue of subsidy and its implementation.

“People are against the removal of subsidy because whenever it has been done, they did not see the benefit. We did privatisation we did not see the benefit. What we did was that we privatised profits, socialised losses.

“We did everything we’ve done. We did all the things that have been done everywhere. If you say we’re going to remove this, what are we getting here? The problem with Nigeria is that they have removed this, nobody got anything here.

“So, we are going to do it in such a way that it will be transparent…and people will get something in return,” Obi explained.

He added that subsidy removal can only work when there are benefits to show.