Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has challenged President Bola Tinubu to explain why his administration cannot meet the financial obligations to university lecturers despite the removal of petrol subsidy and the savings the government said would be channelled into education and other essential services.
Atiku, in a statement issued on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said Nigerians had already borne the cost of subsidy removal through higher petrol prices, transport fares, food prices, energy bills and school fees, but were yet to see corresponding improvements in public education.
The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the upcoming 2027 elections specifically questioned why the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was again threatening industrial action over unresolved agreements and unpaid entitlements more than three years after subsidy removal.
“If the subsidy is gone and Nigerians have paid for that decision through unprecedented hardship, then President Tinubu owes the country a simple answer: where is the money?” he asked.
Atiku argued that the administration had justified subsidy removal on the basis that freeing up the resources previously spent on subsidising petrol would provide more funding for education, healthcare, infrastructure and other critical services.
He said the renewed threat of an ASUU strike had exposed what he described as a contradiction between the government’s claims of increased revenues and the condition of the country’s public universities.
“The house of cards of falsehoods erected by the Tinubu administration to justify the suffering of Nigerians is collapsing before our eyes,” Atiku said.
According to him, the government had removed the economic cushion available to citizens, collected the supposed savings and imposed severe hardship, but had failed to deliver the improvements Nigerians were promised.
He said families were struggling with soaring food prices, high transport costs, expensive energy and shrinking incomes, while public universities remained underfunded and lecturers continued to raise concerns over unpaid salaries and unresolved agreements.
Atiku also questioned the government’s argument that subsidy savings had translated into higher allocations to state governments. He said if substantially more money is now flowing to the states, Nigerians should be told why the condition of public education had not improved correspondingly.
“Across the federation, public education remains under severe pressure. Several state-owned universities have experienced industrial disputes and disruptions under this administration, even while the federal government continues to advertise an era of stability in the tertiary education calendar,” he said.
The former vice president maintained that the problem therefore went beyond federal universities, describing the situation as a wider contradiction between the revenues the government celebrates and the quality of public services experienced by Nigerians.
“You cannot boast about record allocations while students sit at home because lecturers are on strike. You cannot celebrate higher revenues when classrooms, laboratories, hostels and teaching facilities remain inadequate,” he said.
Atiku also criticised the administration’s student loan policy, arguing that subsidy removal had contributed to the rising cost of living and made university education increasingly expensive for families.
He questioned the logic of making education more costly and subsequently providing loans to students to meet fees that their parents could no longer comfortably afford.
“What kind of reform first empties a family’s pocket and then offers the child a loan to survive the hardship the government helped create?” he asked. “That is not progress. It is a vicious circle of government-manufactured poverty,” he argued.
The former vice president further raised concerns about the capacity of Nigeria’s tertiary education system to accommodate its rapidly growing youth population. He asked where the new classrooms, laboratories, hostels, teaching facilities and additional admission spaces required to accommodate the increasing number of university applicants were.
Atiku said the government could not simultaneously raise the cost of education, leave infrastructure inadequate, fail to settle lecturers’ legitimate claims and disregard agreements, while presenting student loans as a major education reform. “That is not education reform. It is organised hardship financed with debt,” he said.
He also accused the administration of treating ordinary Nigerians differently from powerful and well-connected interests, alleging that the government was able to find concessions, waivers and privileges when influential groups made demands.
“The poor are told there is no money for subsidy. Students are told to borrow. Lecturers are told to wait. Parents are told to endure. But when powerful and well-connected interests come knocking, the government always appears capable of finding concessions, waivers and privileges,” he maintained.
He therefore demanded greater accountability over the resources the government said had been freed by the removal of subsidy.
According to him, the original promise was that subsidies would be removed, resources would be liberated and the savings would be invested in education, healthcare, infrastructure and social welfare.
But he noted that ASUU was again threatening nationwide industrial action over unpaid entitlements and outstanding agreements, while state universities had also experienced disruptions.
He added that students were increasingly relying on loans to fund education as costs rose, even as university infrastructure remained inadequate. “The sacrifice has been collected from Nigerians in full. The promised benefits have not been delivered in full,” Atiku said.
He consequently challenged Tinubu to explain how the resources freed by subsidy removal were being spent.
“Nigerians cannot continue making endless sacrifices for a government whose promises exist mainly in speeches, press releases and statistical announcements. A government cannot keep taking from the people, returning excuses and loans, and calling that reform,” he emphasised.
Atiku said the administration had removed subsidy but had not eliminated the threat of ASUU strikes, resolved all outstanding obligations to lecturers, sufficiently expanded university capacity or made tertiary education more affordable.
Emmanuel Addeh
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