Mua'zu Babangida Aliyu
Governor Mua’zu Babangida Aliyu of Niger state said the 36 state governors were the ones who “pushed” President Goodluck Jonathan to remove fuel subsidy.
Governor Aliyu disclosed this Monday while delivering a lecture on ‘Governance, Social Conflict and the imperatives of Communal Harmony,’ organized by Public Policy Forum of the Business Hallmark newspaper in Lagos.
“When the issue of fuel subsidy came up, all of us, I mean all the governors with no exception, literarily ‘pushed’ the President to remove the subsidy on fuel. This is because before the monthly allocation is given, lots of deductions had taken place and little is left for the states and local governments.”
He however said that they had to let off the pressure when some politicians who couldn’t win elections and lost at all levels of court started committing treason in the name of “Occupy Nigeria.”
The governor, who is also the chairman of Northern Governors’ Forum, said ordinarily there would not have been any reason for deployment of soldiers on the streets but government action was prompted when certain people were saying the fuel subsidy protest will be a re-incarnation of Libyan and Egyptian revolutions.
He made a strong case for a true federalism, noting that the system has no problem in concept even as he said Nigerian leaders have failed to operate it properly.
He further decried a situation whereby certain states earned more allocations than the others, saying such development is not good for the development of the country. According to Aliyu, the imbalance in the distribution of allocations had placed some states in “paradise” while others are in “purgatory”.
Aliyu also spoke on the Sovereign National Conference, the girl-child education, insecurity, the menace of Boko Haram and the need to recognize traditional institutions within the framework of the nation’s constitution, among other things.
