Professor Emeritus Ibrahim Lawal, a retired NIPSS director and an eminent statesman from Adamawa state, has said that former President Muhammadu Buhari disregarded President Bola Tinubu’s gallant elimination of the gasoline subsidy on his first day of office. He claimed that Tinubu’s audacious move had detrimental effects and resulted in the current status of the economy. He maintained that the President ought to have conducted a thorough inquiry to determine who was receiving the subsidy payments before getting involved in the subsidy issue.
He said in an interview with Tribune, ”How can you cast aspersion on the Buhari’s government or attribute today’s failure to the previous administration? Buhari had avoided the issue of subsidy but Tinubu said ‘No that’s cowardice. I will take the bull by the horns.’ And he took the bull by the horns and found himself on the ground. This is where we are today, when going into the subsidy issue, he [Tinubu] should have first found out who and who were being paid the subsidy.”
