The government cannot bear the burden of huge subsidy on petrol alone, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said Saturday, adding that the consumers should also take their shares of the current high petrol price.

According to Obasanjo, the Nigerian government had subsidized the cost of petrol by 112 billion naira (about 848.46 million US dollars) or 25 naira (about 19 cents) per liter in the last six months.

On the monthly radio current affairs program "the president explains," Obasanjo blamed the current price of crude oil at the international market for the increase in prices of petroleum products, saying that the current price of crude oil in the international market was not sustainable.

It was not politically admissible to put the "whole weight" of the increase on consumers but "they must, nonetheless, bear part of the cost" of the increase, he said.

"I agonize when this type of decision has to be taken. But as a politician who looks at today and a statesman who takes care of tomorrow," and such decisions had to be taken though it was not easy, he added.

"Passing the cost completely to you (consumers) will be politically unacceptable but not doing so will be economically unsustainable," he said.

He said the burden had to be shared for economic reasons, especially in getting fund for infrastructure development.

"I am not unsympathetic but we have myriad of problems to solve," said the president.

Obasanjo said the government needed to provide affordable housing, health care potable water and basic infrastructure.

He said there was a need to establish a petroleum price stabilization fund to absorb the recurring shock of fuel price increases.

He, however, said he would not subscribe to the popular view that such a body should be funded from the federation account.

He said federation account was owned by the three tiers of government and passing the buck to the government would not be right but "we are looking into all sorts of possibilities."

The price of petrol on Friday rose to between 65 naira and 75 naira (about 49.2 US cents and 56.8 cents) per liter across Nigeria, the largest oil producer in Africa or the sixth largest oil exporter in the world with an output of 2.5 million barrels of crude per day.

Source: Xinhua