The Federal Government has announced a N5bn palliative for each state of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory to cushion the impact of the removal of the petrol subsidy.
The governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, made the announcement in Abuja on Thursday when he spoke to State House correspondents at the end of a National Economic Council meeting.
Vice President Kashim Shettima presided over the meeting.
The council is made up of the governors of the 36 states, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and other coopted government officials.
The development is coming 24hours after the NNPC Limited disclosed that it has signed a Commitment Letter and Term Sheet with AfreximBank for an emergency $3 billion crude oil repayment loan.
The company said the agreement was jointly signed by both parties at the bank’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.
NNPC Limited, in a statement made available to Vanguard, explained that the loan “will provide some immediate disbursement that will enable the NNPC Ltd to support the Federal Government in its ongoing fiscal and monetary policy reforms aimed at stabilizing the exchange rate market”.
Recall that last week, the Federal Government reported a 13.6 percent drop in daily crude oil production in the month of July, leaving the country seriously short of dollar revenues from crude oil export.
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, disclosed that production averaged 1.08 million barrels per day compared to 1.25mbpd recorded in June, latest production data from the, has indicated.
The July production figure was a major setback for the government which has a production target of 1.69 million barrels per day in the 2023 budget. The volume of production was also significantly lower than the 1.7 million barrels per day production quota allocated to the country by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.
