Nasir El-Rufai, the former Governor of Kaduna State, recently made a startling claim regarding the federal government’s expenditure on petrol subsidies under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. El-Rufai stated that the current government is allocating more resources to fuel subsidies than previous administrations, potentially creating a significant economic strain.

El-Rufai’s announcement came during a post-delivery press briefing after his keynote address at a capacity-building workshop for political appointees in Maiduguri on Monday. The workshop, which focused on enhancing government officials’ skills in policy implementation and human resource management, provided a platform for El-Rufai to share his insights on the current state of fuel subsidies under President Tinubu’s administration.

He said, “The federal government is now subsidizing fuel; many people don’t know this.”
Applauding the policy, El-Rufai added, “It is a right policy. I have always supported the withdrawal of oil subsidy; but in the course of implementing the policy, the government realised that subsidy has to be back; right now, government is a lot of money for subsidy, even more than before.

“You start implementing a policy because you are absolutely sure it is the right policy, but in the course of implementation, you come across bottlenecks, and you modify.

“The keyword in leadership, in my view, is pragmatism. You should be pragmatic. So when you make a policy, you start implementing it, and it doesn’t seem to work well. You should have the humility to stand back and say this is not working, and you modify it.”

“It is too early to judge the present administration.

“It (the Tinubu administration) has been there just for nine months now,” he observed, adding, “Leadership is a work in progress.”

Further emphasising, the former governor of Kaduna insisted, “Leadership is a continuous thing, and you cannot judge someone who has four years in just nine months.”