Falana to Tinubu: Be man enough to reject IMF’s advice
Femi Falana, human rights advocate and lawyer, has advised President Bola Tinubu to shun the prodding by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to remove subsidy on electricity and petrol. The lawyer accused the Fund of giving different advice to Nigeria and UK while they face similar circumstances.
He said, “In urging the Bola Tinubu administration to pluck up the courage to reject the dangerous directives of the IMF to further increase the pump price of PMS and electricity tariffs, the international intruder should be questioned for applying different standards to Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
“Henceforth, the Federal Government should halt the implementation of the dangerous prescriptions of the IMF including the removal of subsidies and floating of the Naira.
“Our economic managers should be wary of the sort of lectures they receive from the IMF on the matter of subsidies given the realities in some advanced capitalist economies.
“According to the London-based news agency, Reuters, on June 8, 2023, the British government said that it had paid almost 40 billion pounds ($50 billion) in energy subsidies since it began to help households and businesses cope with the surge in power bills after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The same Reuters reported last year that the United States’ subsidies for renewable energy producers more than doubled between 2016 and 2022, forming nearly half of all federal energy-related support in that period. Renewable subsidies jumped to $15.6 billion in fiscal year 2022 from $7.4 billion in fiscal year 2016, according to the Energy Information Administration’s Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy report.
“The French newspaper, Le Monde, also reported that on April 21, 2023, the French government said that it would continue subsidising electricity bills into 2025 as prices suffer from Russia’s invasion of “Ukraine and part of the country’s nuclear reactor fleet remaining offline.
The IMF has not called on France to stop subsidising electricity and increase electricity tariffs. So, the IMF anti-subsidy campaign in Nigeria should be flatly rejected. “
