Sanusi said Nigeria’s current inflation and hardship are results of the delayed removal of fuel subsidy since 2011.
The Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, has said that Nigeria’s current economic hardship is a consequence of the country’s failure to remove fuel subsidy more than a decade ago.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Oxford Global Think Tank Leadership Conference, the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor argued that if the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan had been allowed to eliminate the subsidy in 2011, the nation’s economic woes would have been far less severe.
“If Nigerians had allowed the Jonathan government to remove the subsidy in 2011, there would have been pain. But that pain would have been a very tiny fraction of what we are facing today. This is the cause of the delay,” he said.
Sanusi added that CBN projections at the time showed inflation would not have exceeded 30 percent after subsidy removal.
“At that time, we worked out the numbers… remove the subsidy today. Inflation moves up from 11 per cent to 13 per cent, I will bring it down in a year,” he stated.