August 02, (THEWILL) – The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has expressed doubts over the several palliative measures being dished out by the President Bola Tinubu administration, describing them as faulty and potentially ineffective.
This assertion was made by, the IPMAN Chairman in Rivers State, Mr. Joseph Obele, while reacting to the nationwide broadcast by President Tinubu on Monday.
Mr Obele, who spoke in Port Harcourt after the broadcast, opined that President Tinubu has not shown much interest in revamping the nation’s refineries into its production state, adding that the President is seeking to apply wrong solutions in addressing the myriad of economic challenges facing the country.
Obele recalled that Tinubu had in the broadcast mentioned billions of naira budgeted for different palliatives, loans for students, and free buses, and how they have saved over N1 trillion from subsidy removal within a month.
He questioned why the president and his team cannot make meaningful investments in restoring the status of all the refineries in the country to address the issues of subsidy, noting that the president was heading in the wrong direction.
The IPMAN boss said the speech of the president lacked a good insight into how Nigeria can come out of the persistent economic mess, adding that the proposed palliatives would yield faulty results.
His words: “Why won’t they just invest all the billions in fixing our refineries within few days. The truth is that, until we fix the Nigeria refineries, the price of fuel will be expensive since we are buying from the international market and the prices of other commodities will reflect as such.
“I’m beginning to think that Mr President has an interest in the foreign refineries that Nigeria is buying fuel from. In his 13 minutes speech, nothing was said about fixing Nigeria’s refineries, then I asked myself who are the advisers of Mr President?
“I will say on good authority that all the proposed palliatives will be in futility. Administrative experts will tell you that, if you really want to solve any problem, you must attend to the root cause of the problem. Until then, the problem will continue.
“The address of Mr President doesn’t contain the solutions to Nigeria’s current economic conditions and the Problems, pains and Hardship will definitely continue until Nigeria’s refineries are functional.”
It could be recalled that President Tinubu in his address announced several intervention measures to revive the economy, which include N175 billion to boost the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
About the Author
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
