Removal of fuel subsidies stops Nigeria’s economy from collapsing – Alake

Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake on Thursday said the removal of fuel subsidies by the current administration stopped the Nigerian economy from collapsing.

Alake stated this at the Nigeria Revenue Service-Ministry of Solid Minerals Development (NRS-MSMD) Joint Stakeholder Sensitization program 2026 (North-Central).

He said without the removal of subsidies, Nigeria would face dire consequences, including plunging into a severe economic crisis and possible collapse.

The minister said the reforms being undertaken by President Bola Tinubu’s government were aimed at repositioning the economy.

He said: “Because when this government came to power, or even long before it came to power, this country borrowed money to pay salaries.

“Not to capitalize the economy, but to pay salaries with current expenditure, not capital.

“When a society or a country borrows to pay salaries, you know what that means, there will be no development.

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“At a certain point when borrowing became too difficult and we ran into difficulties, because our credit rating also plummeted.

” So, the lending institutions were very skeptical of us. What did we start doing? We started printing currency locally, we printed more than 20 trillion.”

Alake noted that the current reforms are an effort to prevent the economy from getting worse.

He traces Nigeria’s economic decline to pre-Tinubu rule as a shift from local production in the 1960s to early 1980s to wholesale imports.