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Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has demanded greater transparency over the additional revenue accruing to the Federal Government, states and local governments following the removal of petrol subsidy.
Falana said Nigerians had yet to see sufficient benefits from the increased funds available to the three tiers of government, despite assurances that subsidy removal would free resources for development.
The lawyer raised the concerns during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, where he urged citizens to demand accountability over government spending.
Falana cited the condition of a road in Ekiti State leading to Afe Babalola University, arguing that the local government should have sufficient resources to address such infrastructure challenges.
“I was just reading some news about a particular road in Ekiti State, the road that leads to Afe Babalola University. And everybody there is asking the Abuja people to come and fix the road, whereas between January and May this year, that local government has taken about N5.4 billion,” he said.
He questioned why the road could not be repaired with the resources available to the local government.
“So you can’t fix a road with less than 500 million naira? And in any case, state governments were fixing roads, and they would then go to Abuja to ask for a refund,” Falana said.
He said the Federal Government and the subnational governments should explain how the additional revenue generated since the subsidy removal was being deployed.
“If you say we are making more money, we don’t want to go back to the era of the fuel subsidy scam. Where are the benefits? It’s a fallacy being told to wait and wait and wait. People are dying,” he said.
