Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has said the federal government did not scrap petrol subsidies on its own, but acted under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Falana made the claim on Sunday, September 14, during an interview on Sunday Politics, a Channels Television programme.
He argued that subsidy removal was not only harsh on Nigerians but also unusual in global practice.
“There’s no way you can remove subsidies completely; no country in the entire world has abolished subsidies completely,” he said.
“Even leading Western countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, France and others subsidise electricity, agriculture and many aspects of people’s lives.”
He insisted that international lenders pushed Nigeria into abolishing petrol subsidies. .
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“As a matter of fact, if I must say this, it was the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that insisted that the government must remove all subsidies,” Falana added.
President Bola Tinubu announced the end of petrol subsidies on May 29, 2023, during his inauguration. Around the same time, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) unified the foreign exchange market.
Both policies combined to fuel record inflation and deepen hardship across the country.
Falana also faulted the planned five percent fuel surcharge, urging the government not to heap more burdens on citizens.
He explained that the money should first go to the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), which was already owed funds from previous deductions.
“The provision was clear: 40 percent for federal roads, 60 percent for state roads; sadly, the government never implemented it,” he said.
“We asked FERMA in 2011 how much was collected; they replied that the government never gave them a kobo.
“By 2022, even the Senate confirmed that over one trillion naira was owed to FERMA. Before introducing new levies, the government must tell Nigerians what happened to the earlier deductions.”
Falana further warned against dollarisation of the economy, calling it a criminal offence to reject the naira in any transaction.