Fuel subsidy: 'TMG, civil society groups 'll shut down Nigeria' 'It will end enrichment of a few Nigerians 'Gov Yari

The chairman of theTransition Monitoring Group (TMG), Comrade Mashood Erubami, on Sunday, warned that the country may be shut down over the removal of petroleum subsidy by the Federal Government.He said TMG, with other civil society groups, would resist the attempt, adding that the country might be shut down if the government went ahead with its decision as the chain of reactions in the socio-economic and political spheres might not be predictable.Erubami, in a statement in Ibadan, described the planned removal of subsidy on petroleum products as a wrong step in the wrong direction and another painful approach to Nigeria's development.According to him, the seeming tacit approval by the president for the removal of oil subsidy is an attempt to rubbish the value that would accrue to the new minimum wage to be paid to workers, as there will be increase in prices of all commodities.He contended that the reason given by government for the subsidy removal was not ideal.While noting that some unpatriotic Nigerians were the masterminds, he declared that, like in the past, it would not achieve anything beyond doubling the jeopardy of Nigerians.Meanwhile, Governor Abdul'aziz Abubakar Yari of Zamfara State, on Sunday, said the removal of subsidy will put an end to the enrichment of a few people through the huge sum deducted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).In a brief chat with airport journalists at the presidential lounge of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Governor Yari, while justifying the removal of oil subsidy, said the deduction of N1.3 trillion as subsidy from January 2011 till date by the NNPC, ended up making a few people richer as the money ended up in private pockets.The Zamfara State governor, who said that even before now people of his state never enjoyed oil subsidy in view of the exorbitant price they buy fuel, argued that the removal of the subsidy would benefit a greater part of the country if the N3 trillion often deducted by the NNPC could be used to establish refineries.
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