The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke has declared that he does not believe in petrol subsidy.
However, he explained that the cost of production should be the basis for pricing petrol.
Duke while speaking during a media interaction on Tuesday in Abuja proposed strategies to make petrol affordable by considering the cost of production and distribution, and suggested innovative solutions like dyeing petrol to prevent smuggling.
He explained: “Now I will tell you why I don’t believe in subsidy. This oil is our own. It belongs to all of us. It’s our common wealth. Don’t look at the price of the oil in the international market. We need about maybe 300,000 barrels a day. We produce about 1.7 million bdp; 1.4 m bpd we sell commercially. This 300,000 bpd, look at the cost of production, not the international price.
“While we sell the oil at $70 or $80 a barrel, the cost of production may not exceed $40 a barrel. That barrel has about seven by-products. Of those seven by-products, the key ones to us are probably diesel and PMS.
“Give it to us at the cost of production, not at the market price. Take into cognizance the cost of refining, take into cognizance the cost of distribution, and put five or 10 per cent above. Sell this the five other by-products from a barrel of crude at commercial rate, you find that you can easily amortize petrol and give it to your people at N200 or N300.
“Why is it important? That’s what drives your economy. That’s what drives the country, right? You’ve got to use what you’ve got to get what you want.
“How can you say, for instance, that the price of a product that keeps your economy going, but most people cannot afford it, and you own it.”
The presidential candidate warned that fragmented opposition parties cannot defeat President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 elections.
TheHintsNews reports that opposition parties and presidential candidates on Monday in Abuja opened fresh negotiations on the possibility of presenting a single candidate against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2027 presidential election.
The summit was convened by the G-100 political pressure group and brought together representatives of six opposition parties, including the Africa Democratic Congress (ADC), Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and PRP.
Duke stressed that there was a need for a common vision that all opposition members could identify with, rather than just focusing on replacing the president.
He also emphasised the importance of articulating this vision and identifying the best leaders to articulate it.
Duke was of the opinion that if the objective was to take Tinubu out of the office, without any strategy or blueprint on how to set the country on a path of progress, he would not be part of it.
His words: “Well, if that were the common objective, just taking the president out of office, I won’t be part of it. The objective must be a vision that all of us can key and identify with.
“Then if all of us, the so-called opposition, key into this vision, then the next step is, how do we articulate the vision? and who is best suited to lead the team, lead the team to articulate the vision, because whether you like it or not, there will be a president come 29th of May.
“Someone will get elected, and if the only thing is to replace Bola Tinubu with X Y Z, we’re not moving anywhere.
“So I think for the opposition, the first thing we need to do is agree on the commonality of a vision. This is where we’re going. Who is best suited to articulate that vision?
“In my opinion, I don’t think there’s any way the opposition today, as chequered and fragmented as it is, can win an incumbent. The system of government that we run — which is a presidential system — allows for what I will call a constitutional monarchy, and it also has to have a major opposition to check it, because a monarchy is absolute, and the power of a president or a governor in the state or the nation is absolute.”
Duke argued that Tinubu won the 2023 presidential election because the opposition was divided, adding that if Abubakar Atiku’s 6.9 million votes and Peter Obi’s 6.2 million votes were combined, they would have had over 13 million votes against Tinubu’s 8 million votes
He stressed that while the opposition had 60 per cent of votes against the APC, Tinubu with only 36 per cent votes still won.