On Thursday, the special adviser to the president on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga, debunked news making the rounds that the Federal Government spent N5.4 trillion on fuel subsidies.
News About Nigeria reports that the clarification by the Presidency is in response to the release of some documents showing that the FG is still paying for fuel subsidy despite claims that it has ended in Nigeria.
According to Onanuga, the now-viral documents of the fuel subsidy payment, which have been sparking various reactions from Nigerians, are fake as they were never approved by the federal government.
The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu made the clarification in a post on his official X account on Thursday.
Onanuga noted that the payment of fuel subsidy ended the very day President Tinubu made the pronouncement when he came into office on May 29, 2023.
He, therefore, charged the general public and the media to disregard the documents and cease further discussions on them.
The statement titled “Leaked documents on fiscal policy proposals not official” partly reads, “The attention of the Presidency has been drawn to two fiscal policy documents in circulation that are being given wide coverage by the mainstream media and social media platforms. We urge the public and the media to disregard the two documents and cease further discussions on them. None is an approved official document of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“They are all policy proposals that are still subject to reviews at the highest level of government. Indeed, one has ‘draft’ clearly written on it. The government wants to restate that its position on fuel subsidy has not changed from what President Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared on May 29, 2023. The fuel subsidy regime has ended. There is no N5.4 trillion being provisioned for it in 2024, as is being widely speculated and discussed.”
