All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State has taken a swipe at Governor Seyi Makinde over his recent condemnation of President Bola Tinubu’s decision to stop payment of petrol subsidy.
Makinde, who addressed the audience during an interfaith prayer session at the Agodi Government Secretariat, on Tuesday, reportedly blamed the worsening economic situation in the country on the Tinubu administration.
The governor specifically mentioned that the removal of fuel subsidy in May last year was done hastily and at a wrong time, “thereby inflicting hardship on the citizenry.”
On May 29, 2023, Tinubu had reportedly gone beyond his script to announce that “subsidy is gone”, a pronouncement that instantly shot up petrol price and transport fares.
Reacting to Makinde’s comment, Publicity Secretary of Oyo APC, Olawale Sadare, urged the governor to shun grandstanding and learn to take responsibility for his personal failure in improving the economy of the state after collecting billions of naira in federal allocations, Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), loans, grants among others in the last 55 months.
APC said: “We had waited a few days expecting Governor Makinde to debunk or make clarification on the misleading statement credited to him in the media, since Tuesday.”, but this never happened. It is then obvious that a governor, in his second term in office, actually put the blame of dwindling economy on a seven month-oldgovernment at the centre, even when the whole world knows he is part of the problem.
“As much as we would not delve into the culpability of Makinde in the mismanagement of the nation’s petroleum resources, it is important we ask him to withdraw his criticism of Tinubu on the courageous and heroic decision to stop fuel subsidy payment by the Federal Government, since it has been established that the policy was not only fraudulent but also counter-productive and economically suicidal.”
