My predecessor neglected gas resources to power economy, focused only on petrol – Tinubu

President Bola Tinubu has explained efforts being made his administration to fix and diversify the country’s economy.

In an address to the nation on Sunday, President Tinubu appealed to youths protesting economic hardship in the nation to suspend their demonstration and embrace dialogue.

Young Nigerians have been staging #EndBadGovernance protests across the country. They are demanding the return of fuel subsidy, job opportunities, security and electoral reforms.

But Tinubu said subsidy is not coming back, saying that it is the noose around the economy, as well as multiple FX rates.

He said despite the abundant natural resources in the country, his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, solely focused on revenue from petrol, neglecting the immense opportunities that lie in gass resources.

The president said to this effect, his administration launched the Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (CNG), to power the country’s transportation sector, to reduce the cost of movement of goods and people.

“Fellow Nigerians, we are a country blessed with both oil and gas resources, but we met a country that had been dependent solely on oil-based petrol, neglecting its gas resources to power the economy. We were also using our hard-earned foreign exchange to pay for, and subsidise its use. To address this, we immediately launched our Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (CNG) to power our transportation economy and bring costs down. This will save over two trillion Naira a month, being used to import PMS and AGO and free up our resources for more investment in healthcare and education,” he said.

“To this end, we will be distributing a million kits of extremely low or no cost to commercial vehicles that transport people and goods and who currently consume 80% of the imported PMS and AGO.

“We have started the distribution of conversion kits and setting up of conversion centres across the country in conjunction with the private sector. We believe that this CNG initiative will reduce transportation costs by approximately 60 percent and help to curb inflation.

“Our administration has shown its commitment to the youth by setting up the student loan scheme. To date, 45.6billion Naira has already been processed for payment to students and their respective institutions

“I encourage more of our vibrant youth population to take advantage of this opportunity. We established the Consumer Credit Corporation with over N200billion to help Nigerians to acquire essential products without the need for immediate cash payments, making life easier for millions of households. This will consequently reduce corruption and eliminate cash and opaque transactions. This week, I ordered the release of an additional N50billion Naira each for NELFUND – the student loan, and Credit Corporation from the proceeds of crime recovered by the EFCC.

“Additionally, we have secured $620million under the Digital and Creative Enterprises (IDiCE) – a programme to empower our young people, creating millions of IT and technical jobs that will make them globally competitive. These programmes include the 3Million Technical Talents scheme. Unfortunately, one of the digital centres was vandalised during the protests in Kano. What a shame!

“In addition, we have introduced the Skill-Up Artisans Programme (SUPA); the Nigerian Youth Academy (NIYA); and the National Youth Talent Export Programme (NATEP).

Also, more than N570 billion has been released to the 36 states to expand livelihood support to their citizens, while 600,000 nano-businesses have benefitted from our nano-grants. An additional 400,000 more nano-businesses are expected to benefit.”