Mr. Adebayo Balogun, chairman of the Committee on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), said at a recent ceremony that as soon as an oil refinery came online in Lagos, his organization would remove subsidies for fuel.

Balogun, the legislator for Ibeju Lekki Federal Constituency in Lagos State, said that fuel subsidies would be removed by April. He added that according to the Petroleum Industry Act, subsidy was supposed to have been terminated by June of this year.

He said the PIA had to be changed if subsidies were going to end in June, but noted that the federal government had announced it would end them by April.

He said that the oil subsidy would not be removed until Dangote and other refineries are able to produce enough refined petroleum products.

He said: “In the PIA, subsidy was meant to be removed in June but we had to amend the Act to fast forward it to April because the Federal Government said it will be removed by April.

“The removal cannot be done if Dangote and other refineries are not ready and so that means all these things will come up in the next one or two months.

“You know Dangote refinery also has the petrol-chemical plant which will bring the chemical we use for plastics, pharmaceuticals, and others and these are the things we spend billions of dollars to import every year and this will open up other opportunities for people.”