APC leader Biodun Ajiboye argues subsidy was already unsustainable before Tinubu took office, insists president merely formalised an inevitable reality.

A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Biodun Ajiboye, has insisted that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not personally remove the fuel subsidy but only announced its cessation upon assuming office.

Ajiboye made the assertion on Monday during an interview on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme, where he argued that the subsidy regime had already collapsed by May 2023, leaving the new administration with no viable option.

According to him, the economic realities on ground made the continuation of fuel subsidy impossible even before Tinubu was sworn in as president.

“By the time President Tinubu came into office in May 2023, whether we liked it or not, there was no possibility of continuing with subsidy,” Ajiboye said. “Tinubu did not remove it; he only announced the removal.”

He dismissed criticisms that the announcement was made without adequate preparation, questioning how a policy that was no longer financially sustainable could have been maintained.

Ajiboye further claimed that the Tinubu administration is already reversing negative economic trends, asserting that unemployment has dropped sharply from about 33 per cent to roughly 4 per cent, driven by growth in other sectors of the economy.

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