Fuel Subsidy: We Must be Sensitive, Reduce Long Convoys—Soludo

The Anambra State Governor, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, has advised the political class and other governors to be sensitive to the issue happening in the country and prune down long convoys, due to the removal of petroleum subsidy by the President Bola Tinubu’s led administration.

Governor Soludo announced this while addressing newsmen after the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting at the Council Chambers of the State House in Abuja on Thursday, July 20,2023.

He affirmed that the situation in the country has called for some reviews, and it would be insensitive for governors to move around with large convoys.

Soludo said, “That we mustn’t live, even the cost of running the state, the way we even live, someone gave an example of a state governor going with 20-something vehicles in a convoy and all these have to be fuelled, and so on and so forth.”

The governor also confirmed there were discussions among the governors and members of the council to also make sacrifices for the people.

“Hey gentlemen, we would need to be sensitive to the times; we need to live within the average of the people that we’re governing, and so on and so forth, and knock off the waste and the irrelevancies, so to speak,” he advised. 

Governor Soludo gave instances of what he has done in his state to cut costs.

He said, “When I assumed office, for example, it was costing about N137 million every month to clean up public offices, and so on. Today, in Anambra, we’re doing N11 million a month from N137 million on a monthly basis; this is just an illustration.”

The NEC meeting was chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima. However, the council is also made up of the 36 state governors, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and other government officials.