By Olasunkanmi Akoni
LAGOS — Action Congress of Nigeria, CAN, has rejected plans by the Federal Government to remove petroleum subsidy, warning that it would have far-reaching consequences not only to the sustainability of Nigeria’s democracy but the continued existence of the nation as a unified entity.

The party described the proposed subsidy removal as the handiwork of those propelled by the philosophy of the “Washington Consensus’ of rolling back the frontiers of the state.”

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement, yesterday, condemned the reduction of the subsidy removal debate to a purely fiscal issue, without considering the responsibility of the government to improve the lives of the people through prudent management of state resources.

As a way out of the subsidy conundrum, the party proposed the establishment of modular refineries with a total of 280,000 barrels per day refining capacity in nine cities, to include Gusau, Enugu, Ibadan, Kano, Makurdi, Maiduguri, Lagos, Auchi and Gombe, in addition to reviving the existing ones.

According to ACN: ‘’Primarily, the basic objective of any fiscal policy is to improve the living conditions of the people through poverty reduction and the provision of welfare services. The removal of subsidy must therefore go beyond the cheap argument of improving the solvency of the government.

‘’To reduce the responsibility of government to its citizen to Naira and Kobo tokenism is tantamount to abdicating responsibility, and this has far reaching consequences not only on sustaining our democracy but the continued existence of the nation as a unified entity.’’

It said that government’s argument that the subsidy benefits some members of a faceless cartel would begin to have meaning only if and when the government names the beneficiaries and tell Nigerians why they cannot be stopped from fleecing the state.

The party also noted that the only reason the issue of fuel subsidy has continued to recur was because Nigeria imports petroleum products for domestic consumption, warning that so long as importation continues, the problem the government sets out to confront would continue like a recurring decimal.