World Bank, the IMF forced Nigeria to removal subsidies – Falana

The lawyer for human rights, Femi Falana, San, said that the controversial removal of the subsidy for petrol was not a decision taken regardless of the Nigerian government, but a imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Falana, who spoke on the Sunday’s Sunday policy program, said that it was misleading to suggest that Nigeria was following a global economic standard, insisting on the fact that no country in the world has completely abolished subsidies.

“It is not possible to completely remove subsidies; no country in the world did it,” he said.

“Even the main western nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France subsidize electricity, agriculture and many aspects of people’s lives”.

President Bola Tinubu had announced the removal of the subsidy for petrol on May 29, 2023, during his inauguration.

The central bank of Nigeria (CBN) followed the unification of the change market. Both policies triggered the undernant’s inflation and worse the cost of the living crisis in the country.

Falana claimed that the government did not have a moral basis to impose further fuel supplements for the Nigerians, warning that a five -percentage withdrawal proposed would further punish citizens already too tense.

He quoted the provisions of section 14 of the firm maintenance agency of the federal roads (stop), 2007, which entered into a debit for the five percent user on fuel sales to finance the federal and state roads.

According to him, although the regulators have deduced the withdrawal from oil sales between 2007 and 2011, Fermo confirmed that he has never received any remittance.

“In 2011, when we asked what he was collected, they told us that the government never gave them a Kobo,” Falana said.

“In 2022, the Senate also confirmed that over a trillion of Naira was due to stopped. Before introducing new withdrawals, the government must tell the Nigerians what happened to those deductions.”

The lawyer Senior warned that imposing new taxes without responsibility would be equivalent to multiple taxation.

The falana also urged the government to stop the dollarization of transactions in Nigeria, underlining that it is a criminal offense to reject the Naira in favor of the foreign currency.

He claimed that if the removal of the subsidies were truly a Nigerian policy, the government should have domesticated alternatives to cushion the impact, rather than giving in to the pressure of the IMF and the World Bank.

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