I Will Bring Back Fuel Subsidy If Elected President - Sowore.

Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has promised to reinstate fuel subsidy if elected president, arguing that subsidy itself is not the problem but how it is administered.

Sowore made the statement during an interview while responding to questions about his plans for Nigeria’s economy ahead of the election.

Asked whether he would bring back fuel subsidy, he replied, “I would bring back subsidy.”

According to him, the Federal Government is still effectively subsidising some areas of the economy but has simply changed what the policy is called.

“In the first place, they’re still paying subsidy. They just change the name of what they call it. They’re subsidizing not only petrol, because they don’t have enough, you know, they can’t produce locally,” he said.

Sowore also claimed that the government was subsidising the naira, arguing that this was rarely acknowledged.

“They’re also subsidizing the Naira. That’s one thing they will never tell you. The reason the Naira is at a certain, you know, rate to a dollar, is because it’s been quietly and secretly subsidized,” he said.

He argued that removing fuel subsidy had contributed to economic hardship and the depreciation of the naira.

“And you saw what happened. Immediately you remove subsidy, look at where your economy tanked. Your Naira also went down, it toilet,” Sowore said.

The AAC candidate maintained that subsidy should not automatically be viewed as a bad policy, arguing that governments have a responsibility to support vulnerable citizens.

“Whatever everybody has agreed happened to subsidy is not that subsidy is bad, because there’s no country in the world that don’t subsidize their poor,” he said.

Sowore further criticised Nigeria’s worsening poverty and food insecurity, saying the country needs to abandon the policies that have contributed to its economic difficulties.

“Optics don’t feed people,” he added.