Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Sunday doubled down on his proposal to restore a targeted petrol subsidy, accusing President Bola Tinubu of running a contradictory economic policy that removes support from poor Nigerians while granting tax credits, concessions and other incentives to major investors in the petroleum industry.
Atiku, through a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, described the federal government’s claim that petrol subsidy had been abolished as one of the biggest economic frauds being sold to Nigerians, arguing that public resources were still being deployed to cushion costs and support investment in the same sector.
The former vice president said the Tinubu administration had transferred the burden of economic adjustment to households, even as it provided fiscal support to major petroleum investors.
“Tinubu stood at Eagle Square and declared that subsidy was gone. Petrol prices exploded, transportation costs soared, food prices followed, businesses buckled and household purchasing power collapsed. Nigerians were told there was no alternative and that enduring this pain was the necessary price of economic reform.
“But when major oil investors knock on Tinubu’s door, the sermon changes. Suddenly, government intervention is good economics; tax credits are necessary; fiscal concessions are strategic; and private investment must be ‘de-risked.’ Apparently, subsidy is only evil when poor Nigerians benefit from it,” he stated.
Atiku questioned the rationale for providing fiscal incentives to petroleum investors while rejecting what he described as targeted intervention to reduce the burden of high energy costs on households.
He specifically cited the government’s Deep Offshore Oil and Gas Projects Incentives framework, under which qualifying petroleum developments can receive production tax credits, arguing that the policy demonstrated that government intervention remained part of the administration’s economic approach.
The former vice president also challenged the administration’s explanation of energy-security expenses recorded by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), arguing that the figures showed that public resources continued to absorb petroleum price differentials despite the declaration that subsidy had been removed.
According to Atiku, NNPC’s 2023 accounts recorded approximately N4.84 trillion as energy-security expenses and related shortfalls, while its 2024 audited financial statements recorded about N7.13 trillion under energy-security expenses.
He said NNPC had explained that the expense arose partly from the difference between the exchange rate used to determine the regulated PMS ex-coastal price and the prevailing exchange rate when import obligations were settled.
Atiku maintained that the description of the expenditure as an energy-security expense or shortfall did not alter its economic effect.
“Nigerians do not eat semantics. Whether the government calls it subsidy, under-recovery, shortfall or energy security, public resources were being used to bridge a gap between economic cost and the price at which petrol was sold. You cannot abolish subsidy at the podium and resurrect it in the accounts under an alias,” he said.
The former vice president accused the administration of operating what he described as two economies in one country, with market-driven policies imposed on households while investors received fiscal incentives designed to reduce investment risks.
“The government can protect a multibillion-dollar oil investment from risk, yet it says protecting the Nigerian worker from crushing hardship is bad economics,” Atiku said.
“It can bend policy to make every barrel of crude more profitable, but tells a struggling mother that making the litre of petrol she needs to take her children to school more affordable is irresponsible,” he added.
He argued that the success of economic reform should be measured by its impact on citizens rather than by the removal of a particular policy. “Economic reform is not a competition over how much suffering a President can impose on his citizens. Removing subsidy without adequate buffers while simultaneously providing fiscal cushions to investors in the same petroleum industry is not courage. It is selective economics dressed up as reform,” he argued.
Ex-VP Says He Will Rejig Old Subsidy Regime
Atiku, however, clarified that his proposal did not amount to a return to the previous subsidy regime, which he described as opaque and vulnerable to abuse.
“This is precisely why the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan rejects Tinubu’s false choice between the corrupt subsidy regime of on Sunday and the cruel shock therapy of today. Atiku is not proposing a return to an unlimited, opaque and corruption-ridden subsidy racket.
“What he proposes is a targeted, capped, transparently budgeted and independently audited intervention with a clearly defined exit mechanism, accompanied by accelerated domestic refining, competition, mass transportation and measures to restore household purchasing power,” the statement added.
He said the same principle used by the government to reduce investment risks could be applied to households bearing the consequences of high petrol prices.
“If the government can legitimately de-risk investment, why is it economic heresy to de-risk survival?” he asked.
Atiku said he supported foreign investment and performance-based incentives for businesses but opposed what he called unequal treatment between corporate investors and ordinary Nigerians.
He called on the federal government to disclose the beneficiaries and value of major petroleum tax credits, remissions and other incentives, alongside the investments delivered in return.
“These concessions belong to the Nigerian people and must never become instruments of patronage dispensed behind closed doors,” he said.
Atiku said the ultimate test of Tinubu’s economic policies should be whether Nigerians were better off, businesses were becoming more productive, jobs were being created and household incomes could meet basic living costs.
“The Atiku Economic Recovery Plan is founded on a fundamentally different philosophy: markets must work, investment must earn a fair return and public finances must be protected, but the Nigerian citizen must remain the ultimate beneficiary of economic policy,” he said.
Yilwatda: Proposal Troubling, Suspicious
But the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, on Sunday rejected Atiku’s proposal to reverse the removal of petrol subsidy, describing it as a troubling policy U-turn that raised questions about the opposition’s preparedness to govern Nigeria.
Yilwatda spoke during a visit to the headquarters of the City Boy Movement in Abuja, where he inspected the organisation’s facilities and interacted with its leadership.
In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Information Strategy, Abimbola Tooki, the APC chairman said Nigerians deserved more than election-season declarations, particularly on a policy with major implications for public finances.
He said any proposal to restore a costly subsidy regime must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny because of the enormous fiscal burden subsidies had placed on public finances and the distortions they had created in the economy.
Yilwatda said the opposition had been challenged repeatedly over the past three years to tell Nigerians what it would do differently if entrusted with power, but that no serious, coherent and convincing alternative had emerged.
He said it was therefore suspicious that, after more than three years without a comprehensive governing agenda, Atiku was presenting a policy about four months before the 2027 general election that could reverse what he described as hard-won economic adjustments.
“Economic policy cannot be reduced to election-season promises. Nigerians deserve to know precisely where the money will come from, what sectors will bear the cost and whether such a policy can be sustained without reopening the fiscal pressures that necessitated reform in the first place,” Yilwatda said.
He maintained that subsidy removal was a difficult but necessary decision, although its consequences required complementary measures to cushion the impact, expand social intervention and strengthen productive sectors.
According to him, the real test of leadership was not the ability to promise immediate relief for electoral advantage, but the courage to take difficult decisions, explain them honestly to citizens and remain committed to policies capable of producing sustainable growth.
Yilwatda warned that reversing the reforms without a credible alternative could undermine investor confidence, worsen fiscal pressures and jeopardise the gains being pursued by the administration.
He urged Nigerians to scrutinise competing economic programmes ahead of the 2027 elections and distinguish between policies designed to address structural problems and promises that could provide short-term political appeal while creating longer-term fiscal difficulties.
The APC chairman also criticised what he described as ideological and organisational inconsistency within the opposition, arguing that politicians who continually move from one political platform to another could not credibly claim to offer the stability and clarity required to govern a complex country.
He said the 2027 election should be a contest of ideas, competence and credible policy alternatives, rather than a competition over who could make the most attractive promises at the last minute.
Olawepo-Hashim: Atiku’s Recent U-turn Dishonest
For his part, the presidential candidate of the Accord Party, Dr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, described Atiku as the “father of subsidy removal” in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, accusing him of dishonesty for reversing his position without apologising to Nigerians.
Olawepo-Hashim, who has consistently opposed subsidy removal, said in an interview last week that subsidy should be restored on petrol and other strategically important products as part of measures to protect citizens and productive sectors from excessive economic shocks.
He, however, faulted politicians who previously advocated subsidy removal but were now reversing themselves without acknowledging their earlier positions.
“Some candidates who campaigned in the last election to remove subsidy are now reversing themselves without even regretting their earlier display of ignorance and lack of compassion for the people,” he said.
Olawepo-Hashim specifically criticised Atiku for changing his position without accounting for his earlier advocacy.
“Atiku’s recant on subsidy removal without an apology is dishonesty. If you change your position because circumstances or evidence have changed, tell Nigerians why you changed. There is nothing wrong with changing your mind. What is wrong is pretending that you never held the position in the first place,” he said.
According to him, Atiku, Tinubu and former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi all campaigned on subsidy removal during the 2023 presidential election, while he, Omoyele Sowore and Prince Adewole Adebayo opposed the policy.
Olawepo-Hashim said Atiku’s position on subsidy removal predated the Tinubu administration, describing the former vice president as one of the earliest major advocates of subsidy removal and wholesale privatisation during the Fourth Republic.
“The truth of the matter is that Atiku, before Tinubu, on the national political scene, has been the father of the idea of subsidy removal and wholesale privatization in this republic, he and his so-called economic team. “We combatted them vigorously during the early period of the Obasanjo government,” he emphasised.
He recalled that in 1999, when Atiku was vice president and headed the economic team under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the administration increased petroleum product prices and removed subsidy.
Olawepo-Hashim said he and other PDP officials publicly opposed the decision, while the National Assembly also passed resolutions against the policy, forcing the executive to reverse its decision.
“We opposed subsidy removal when it was politically inconvenient to do so. We did not suddenly discover the suffering of Nigerians because another election is approaching,” he said.
Olawepo-Hashim said his proposal was not for a return to an uncontrolled subsidy regime but for a targeted and transparent system that would protect citizens and productive sectors from severe price shocks.
“Our position is simple: restore subsidy on petroleum products and other strategic products where necessary, but do it intelligently. Subsidy should be targeted at protecting the Nigerian economy and Nigerian people, not at enriching intermediaries,” he added.
He proposed that any subsidy regime should be based on targeting, transparency, measurable economic outcomes and strict accountability rather than open-ended payments to importers or politically connected intermediaries.
“Our own government would identify strategic products and sectors where price shocks have economic wide consequences, establish clear eligibility criteria, publish the fiscal cost and beneficiaries, and periodically assess whether the intervention is delivering measurable economic benefits,” he said.
Olawepo-Hashim pointed out that stronger domestic production should also be an essential component of any sustainable subsidy policy.
“The objective would be to use subsidy as a bridge to greater domestic productive capacity, not as a permanent excuse for dependence on imports,” he said.
He added that the 2027 presidential election should be defined by competing ideas and credible economic programmes rather than political imitation.
“Nigeria needs originality, courage and compassion in leadership. We cannot continue recycling people because they have the biggest megaphone. We must begin to ask who said what first, who stood by the people when it was difficult, and who has a credible plan to rebuild the economy.”
Chuks Okocha, Emmanuel Addeh, Adedayo Akinwale and Ayodeji Ake
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