Prince Adewole Adebayo, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP (SDP) in the 2023 general elections has faulted President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on the removal of fuel subsidy, describing it as hypocritical.
Adebayo who spoke in an interview on Arise TV, said the president and his party are not consistent on their stance on subsidy removal when they criticised and organised protests against former President Goodluck Jonathan when he attempted the removal of subsidy in January 2012.
Speaking from Maryland in the United States of America (USA), Adebayo said “There are two types of people who criticize the policy. Some of them are hypocrites, some of them are consistent. Those who are opposed to subsidy removal like me and other people have grounds to criticize the programme”.
“But those who supported any one, party or platform that said they will remove subsidy from day one, they are hypocritical. Once you agree to throw a five-year old child from the 10th floor of a building, you cannot say you are surprised that the child broke the limbs”.
“There is no way that you implement the policy they are implementing now that you are not going to have the same consequences. Economics does not admit on cheating, you can cheat in politics. You can inflate your numbers in politics but when it comes to politics, you can’t. You have to take the right policy. If you don’t take the right policies, the consequences of the wrong policies will follow”.
“When we are talking of the hypocrites, it didn’t start with the labour unions. Hypocrisy started with President Tinubu himself who opposed former president (Goodluck) Jonathan when he had a smaller amount of subsidy adjusted and all of them went on the streets and said he cannot do so because the whole country will collapse. But when they came to power, they went in the opposite direction and finished everything once and for all”.
“So, it is not only one person or the other, it is not a political statement when you said people are hypocritical. Just look at the position they took before and the position they are taking now. If there is inconsistency in it but no logic in the change of opinion, you can say they are hypocritical”.
 in the 2023 general elections has faulted President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on the removal of fuel subsidy, describing it as hypocritical.){kind=link}