When President Bola Tinubu took over as Nigeria's leader on May 29, 2023, the pump price of fuel was N197 at the time. However, the product now sells for N617 per litre – less than two months after he was sworn in. In his inaugural address, Tinubu announced that subsidy was gone, fulfilling a promise that all leading presidential candidates made during the campaign. However, pump price of fuel hit N537 per litre days after Tinubu ended subsidy.
On Tuesday, the price climbed further to N617, a development that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) attributed to “market forces”. Nigerians have been lamenting the hardship occasioned by fuel price hike. Amid the lamentation, a video where Tinubu campaigned to slash the price of fuel went into circulation. The video was uploaded on the YouTube page of Channels Television. At his campaign rally in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, on January 25, 2023, Tinubu spoke on a number of issues, but those of fuel scarcity and naira redesign made the headlines.
However, Tinubu who spoke in Yoruba language, also assured the crowd that though people were saying petrol price would hit N200, it would be reviewed downward under him.
“The great Nigerian youths, the great Nigerian students, the confident Nigerian youths. This is a revolution. This election is a revolution. They are plotting, but they will fail. They said fuel price will increase and reach N200 per litre. Go and relax, we will bring it down,” he had said in the 7th minute of the video.
King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall, a Fuji musician who performed at the rally, interrupted the president’s speech with chants as the crowd cheered. On the campaign podium with the president were Vice-President Kashim Shettima; Pa Bisi Akande, interim National Chairman of the APC; Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to the President; Senator Gbenga Daniel; among other bigwigs of the ruling party.
Tinubu went further to say Nigerians would defy the acute fuel scarcity at the time and trek to cast their votes. “The great Nigerian youths, the great Nigerian students, the confident Nigerian youths. This is a revolution. This election is a revolution. They are plotting, but they will fail. They said fuel price will increase and reach N200/N500 per litre. Go and relax, we will crash the prices,” he had said.
“They don’t want this election to be held. They want to sabotage it (elections). Will you allow them?”, Tinubu asked the teeming supporters at the rally, to which they responded “No.”
He continued, “Even if they said there is no fuel, we will trek to vote. They have a lot of mischief; they could say there is no fuel. They have been scheming to create a fuel crisis, but forget about it.
“Relax, I, Asiwaju, have told you that the issue of fuel supply will be permanently addressed. Whoever wants to eat the honey embedded in a mountain won’t worry about the axe. Is that not so? And if you want to eat palm kernel, you would bring stone and use it to break it, then the kernel will come out. It’s not easy to…
“Let them increase the price of fuel, only them know where they have hoarded fuel, they hoarded money, they hoarded naira; we will go and vote and we will win. Even if they changed the ink on Naira notes. Whatever their plans, it will come to nought. We are going to win. Those in the PDP will lose (won ma lule).
“I am homeboy, I have come here, you will not be put to shame, we will take over the government from them, the traitors who wanted to contest with us. They had no experience.”
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