'Jonathan’s Sure-P, a monumental fraud' - Tinubu

National Leader of APC, Bola Tinubu has described as a monumental fraud the SURE-P scheme operated by the Jonathan administration. SURE-P is the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Program established by the immediate past government to re-invest the Federal Government savings from fuel subsidy removal on critical infrastructure projects and social safety net programmes with direct impact on the citizens of Nigeria.

According to a statement he released yesterday May 19th, Tinubu said President Buhari acted right by removing subsidy from oil.

President Buhari after carefully weighing the options decided to do what is right. In an act of courage he removed the oil subsidy thereby freeing the downstream component of this strategic sector of the economy from the distortions of price fixing. However, this decision was not to be a step toward conservative austerity as practiced by the former government. That government simply wanted to end the program that they may prove obedient to neoliberal economic doctrines. They offered no programs of valid compensation to the people. Instead, they instigated a policy of monumental fraud known as Sure-P. However, the only thing sure about it was that its architects would siphon the public’s funds to fatten their own wallets. They wanted to save money (for themselves) yet expend the people for no good reason at all.

Read his full statement after the cut
Ending Price Fixing, The Making of Economic Sense
To construct the right building sometimes means we have to tear down the wrong one standing in our way. Our economic development hinges in equal measure on saying good bye to debilitating and corrupted old practices as it does on embracing efficient, wealth creating new ones.
As political progressives, we are anchored by a healthy and strong regard for the positive role government must assume in ensuring fair play and the just allocation of wealth and benefits within our political economy. We understand that the so called free market is not always fair. This is the major reason that we advocate a comprehensive policy of economic development projects coupled with social programs. These development projects will build the infrastructure and create jobs that were beyond the ability and rationale of our private sector to do. The social programs will bring succor to those the dynamics of the free market would have otherwise left behind.
Yet, as progressives we must be pragmatic and not allow ourselves to become blinded by or render ourselves subservient to ideological bias. Ideology is meant to serve us, not us to serve it. As such, we must recognize that there are certain things the workings of the market perform better over the longer arc of time than government may perform. Establishing the most efficient price for what is essentially an economic commodity is one such thing better left to the interplay of supply and demand. While short-term exigencies may at times call for government action to stabilize markets and prices, government’s long-term determination of such economic prices, although initiated with the finest intentions, often contorts into something ugly and callous. It tends to transmute into corruption, waste and distorted pricing signals that cost the economy more than they benefit the people.
Against this background, we must assess the recent decision to allow the workings of supply and demand to determine the price of fuel. Most of us have called this process one of deregulation. This is an inaccuracy that should be promptly corrected. This decision should end arbitrary government price fixing. By ending this price fixing, government regulation of this market will not be eliminated. It will simply change from its emphasis on maintaining a subsidized price to ensuring that the market remains free and devoid of collusion so that sufficient supply is available at a defensible and affordable albeit higher than subsidy price. Government must still monitor this market to ensure against unjust enrichment that comes from attempts at price fixing.
Understandably the new pricing d