President Muhammadu Buhari’s personal assistant on new media, Bashir Ahmad, has denied reports that the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, has resigned from office.
The presidential aide dismissed the reports in a tweet on Monday.
Some social media users had claimed that Ahmad resigned after “throwing the country’s economy” into debt.
Reacting, however, Bashir said he spoke to an aide of the minister who said reports of the resignation were “not true.”
The presidential aide tweeted:
There is a rumor going around that Honorable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed has resigned.
“The rumor is completely not true,” one of the Minister’s closest aides told me on phone.
The news of the minister’s resignation is coming on the backdrop of her meeting with Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and Minister of State for Petroleum Tmipre Sylva, over the proposed fuel subsidy removal.
At the meeting, the finance minister explained that the government had to reconsider its decision on the planned removal of fuel subsidy after the 2022 budget was passed by the National Assembly.
She stated that fuel subsidy was provided for in the 2022 budget to run from January till June, but after consultations with stakeholders and in view of the high inflation and economic hardship, additional provisions would be made beyond the initial period.
According to Ahmed, it has become clear that the timing for the removal of fuel subsidy will be problematic as the country still experiences high inflation.
She admitted that removing fuel subsidy at this period would ultimately worsen the condition of Nigerians, especially those struggling to make ends meet.
Sylva, on his part, aligned himself with the position of the finance minister, stressing that removing fuel subsidy this period was bad timing, politically and economically.
