By John Adams, Minna
All Progressive Congress (APC) party Chieftain in Niger state Hon Jonathan Vatsa has thrown his weight behind former vice president and the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar over his subsidy comment, saying that Nigerians have been shortchanged and reduced to nothing following the removal of the fuel subsidy.
The former commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism in Niger state in a statement in Minna on Sunday titled “let’s take Atiku message and leave the massager” said rather than condemning the ADC presidential candidate and calling him names over his comment, president Tinubu should swallow his vomit on the fuel subsidy removal, reverse his decision and equally apologize to Nigerians for the hardship inflicted on them.
According to Vatsa, even if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu does not like Atiku because of political differences, he should take the message and forget about the messenger.
“Even if you don’t like the messenger, you should at least take the massage. The whole world knows that the subsidy removal policy of this government has failed, it has pushed Nigerians to extreme poverty.
“The fuel subsidy removal only favoured the 36 states governors, their families, elected political office holders and government appointees who have access to government funds.
“It has not in anyway benefited the common masses on the street. It has further push the low income earners in Nigeria below poverty level. Life is meaningless to everage Nigerians right now”,
Vatsa pointed out that the greatest ignorance is on the part of the government that knows the subsidy removal is not beneficial to the masses and still sticked to it, adding that “the benefits of the subsidy removal is to the 36 states governors and not the Nigeria masses”.
The former publicity secretary of the party in the state alleged that the subsidy removal has led to the increase in the number of private jets owners among the governors in the country, saying that “about 90 percent of the governors now owned private jets.
“While governors received huge allocation every month, many of them continued to borrow and acquired loans which cannot be paid back in the next 30 years when they would have died.
“Yet you see uncompleted projects all over the country. There is no roads, no schools and no hospitals.
“They acquired Private jets and luxury cars. Their private businesses continue to strive while government projects are left abandoned.
“You don’t call this system reform, it is starvation. Nigerians can no longer breath, hardship has overwhelmed the people”, Vatsa submitted.
He argued that all over the world, countries subsidized energy for the people because no society can cope with the total removal of subsidy on energy, stressing that “it is the lifewire of every country economy”.
He sighted the situation in Europe when the war between Ukraine and Russia began where European countries subsidized gas price for the people, adding that “Countries in Europe that depended on Russia gas wouldn’t have cope without subsidizing cost of gas for its citizens.
“The problem with the subsidy payment in Nigeria is the corruption attached to it which one would have expected the president to address.
“If only payment of salaries is the reason for the removal of fuel subsidy, then the government is ignorant of how to manage economy. Despite the huge allocations, states government still owed pensioners”, he submitted.