Ogun State Governor Prince Dapo Abiodun has held a closed-door meeting with former President Olusegun Obasanjo at his residence in Abeokuta, the state capital.
Abiodun arrived at the private residence of Obasanjo, located within the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) at 11: 58 am and went straight into a private meeting with him.
Emerging from the meeting which lasted for about an hour, Abiodun declined to reveal the details of the parley to journalists, describing it as strictly private.
“It is a private meeting. A son does not need to have any particular reason to come and see his father, so I have come to see our Baba and it is a private meeting,” he said.
The governor, who commented on fuel subsidy removal, lamented that Nigeria loses N4 trillion annually to the subsidy regime, insisting that there was no better time to remove the subsidy than now.
The governor assured the citizens that the government would put into better use to revamp the economy of the country.
“We all know that the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration started with a bang. On 29th of May, he reeled out a few initiatives, one of the most laudable of those initiatives was his decision to remove subsidies on petroleum products.
“As controversial as that initiative has been, no one can deny the fact that it was a very welcome initiative. That was a subsidy that Nigeria could no longer afford, it was a subsidy that was not in the budget beyond June 2023.
“More importantly, it was costing Nigeria about N4 trillion per annum, N4 trillion that Nigeria did not have, that we have had to borrow, that could be better expended to other uses that the common man can feel, so it was a very right decision.
“Of course, it was a decision that also came with a bit of pain, but like they say, there is no gain without some pain”, Abiodun said.
He urged Nigerians to endure the hardship of increasing fuel price, saying the benefits of the subsidy removal outweigh the pain.
The governor said his administration had rolled out a series of palliatives for civil servants, pensioners and the people of the state to cushion the effect of subsidy removal.
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