*It’s APC’s strategic plot to frustrate Obi, Atiku’s cases, ruling party sources say 

*TUC, NLC pulled into unexpected trap

By Eze Chidozie, Haruna Bamayi and Lateef Ayoola

The decision by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to announce an end to fuel subsidy in the country has been linked to on-going litigation at the Election Tribunal Courts nationwide.

President Tinubu had, on May 29, during his inaugural speech announced that “fuel subsidy is gone with immediate effect”, stressing that it is gone for good.

He attributed the decision to remove subsidy on the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as fuel, to a key matter in his campaign promises, which he does not want to keep in the breach.

Tinubu had attributed the continued retention of fuel subsidy to pouring water into a basket, adding that it was not doing the Nigerian economy any good as subsidy payments was only benefitting the wealthy and those engaged in fuel hoarding and illegal exportation.

But, investigations conducted by our reports have proved that the major reason for the subsidy removal was based on an advise by a “strategic group”, which recommended such as the only way out of the electoral problems being envisaged by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), as the aftermath of majority of the suits filed challenging the handling of the 2023 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which has been adjudged locally and internationally as highly flawed.

It was gathered that the Strategy Team set up by the APC, especially to review the lawsuits filed by the Labour Party’s Presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, and to some extent, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP’s) Atiku Abubakar, are capable of confirming a phyrric victory for Tinubu.

Obi’s claims at the Presidential Election Petitions Court is believed by the Team to be the most damning as the weight of evidence already in his possession, which confirmed heavy manipulation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and declaration of fake results as authentic, by the INEC, thus denying Obi millions of votes he polled during the election nationwide, which could have made him the declared winner, had been gathered, analysed, firmed up and are gradually being tendered at the court.

A source who is in the Tinubu’s Strategy Team, but who does not want to be named, disclosed that “We adopted three options to ensure President Tinubu retained his victory. First was to get Mr. Lamidi Apapa, to grab the national chairmanship of the LP, which failed. 

“Had that succeed, the suit filed by Peter Obi would have been withdraw from the Court by the fiat of the chairman of the party that sponsored him.

“The second Strategy was to get INEC delay or outrightly refuse to issue certified copies of result sheets and other sensitive material to the LP and PDP. 

“It was to frustrate their petitions, delay the process and technically knock them off after 180 days set aside for the tribunal to conclude the case.

“The third strategy was fuel subsidy removal. We understand very well that fuel subsidy is associated with a lot of fraud. As at now, not even the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) knows the figures; Federal Ministry of Finance does not either; Department of Petroleum Resources (DPS) does not have the figures; no agency has the figures. 

“Therefore, if we announce fuel subsidy removal even without ascertaining the figures, we knew the negative ripple and consequential effects, but we must do this to create national upheavals. 

“When the various unions agree with the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), to declare industrial dispute, then, the courts will be shut as no judicial worker will come to work, thereby making it impossible for the Tribunals to sit. 

“Once we get to a point, having succeeded in frustrating the LP and PDP, government will announce a reversal of the policy and by then, the petitioners will have no means of bringing up enough proof of their case before the lapse of the 180 days upper limit stipulated for the court to give judgement”.

Another source revealed how government agents, masquerading as patriotic Nigerians “brain washed” both the TUC and NLC leadership on the ramifications of the fuel subsidy removal, forcing them to declare industrial action.

This source also confirmed that the Federal Government is aware that the preliminaries to subsidy removal has not been begun, but wanted to distract Nigerians and even the most critical of people from the primary reason for the removal, so that when eventually the policy is reversed, nobody will advert his mind as to the underlying reasons for doing so, but applaud Tinubu as a listening president.

Recall that the NLC had declared nationwide strike as from Wednesday, just as the TUC equally threatened to call off workers if government fails to immediately reverse the policy.

When the National Chairman of the LP, Comm. Julius Abure was contacted, he declined comment, insisting that issues he regarded as sub juiced were contained in the questions posed to him.

Similarly, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Barr. Ologunagba refused to speak on the matter, except to hum over the telephone.

On his part, the National Chairman of the APC, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, could not be reached. 

None of the Director-Generals of the parties Presidential Campaign Organisations accepted to speak. Those who volunteered a statement merely said the matter was very sensitive for any comment as at now.

The subsidy removal policy has thrown confusion in the country, with fuel dealers adjusting pump price upward twice just within two days, sending signals that Nigerians are in for a long suffering.

Prices of goods and transportation have consequently quadrupled, sending people who have planned to host social activities to get confused with the state of hopelessness in the country.