Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has rejected President Bola Tinubu’s criticism of his proposal for a temporary intervention in Nigeria’s petroleum sector.
Tinubu had described Atiku’s position on fuel subsidy as evidence of “serious ignorance” of governance and economic management.
But Atiku, through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the President was not in a position to lecture Nigerians on the economy, arguing that the subsidy removal had contributed to rising living costs.
He said the removal of petrol subsidy, coupled with the liberalisation of the foreign exchange market, had been followed by increases in inflation, transportation costs and household expenses.
“The real ignorance is believing suffering is economic policy. Tinubu removed the subsidy from Nigerians’ pockets, but he is yet to remove the questions from his books,” Atiku said.
The former vice president clarified that his proposal was not aimed at restoring the former subsidy system, which he described as prone to abuse.
Instead, he said he was proposing a temporary and targeted production-support mechanism aimed at boosting domestic refining while shielding consumers from excessive fuel price shocks.
“Economic prescriptions respond to prevailing conditions. But other things are no longer equal in Tinubu’s Nigeria,” he stated.
Atiku argued that the economic realities facing Nigerians had changed considerably since Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidy in May 2023.
According to him, petrol prices, transport fares and food costs have risen significantly, while the naira has also lost substantial value.
He said his proposed intervention would be capped, budgeted, time-bound and independently audited, with safeguards against diversion and arbitrage.
Atiku also questioned the continued existence of petroleum under-recoveries and energy-security costs in the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
“If subsidy is dead, why are under-recoveries alive? If corruption was eliminated, why has opacity survived?” he asked.
The ADC presidential candidate further criticised the Federal Government’s argument that higher Federation Account allocations to states demonstrated the success of its economic reforms.
He maintained that increased government revenues should not be celebrated as an economic achievement if ordinary citizens were simultaneously losing purchasing power.
“You do not build a federation by impoverishing citizens so that Abuja can send bigger cheques to governors,” Atiku said.
He also questioned what he described as unresolved issues surrounding about ₦30tn in Federation Account revenues, deductions, savings and transfers.
Atiku further called for greater transparency over the ₦12.8tn Service-Wide Vote contained in the 2026 budget.
He said the effectiveness of economic reforms should be judged by their impact on citizens rather than by the amount of money accumulated by government.
“Economic reform is not measured by how fat government accounts become while citizens grow poorer,” he said.
Atiku urged Nigerians to reject what he described as policies that had deepened economic hardship, insisting that his proposed petroleum-sector intervention was intended to strengthen domestic production while reducing dependence on subsidy over time.
“Nigerians have paid enough for Tinubunomics. They should not be sentenced to another four years of the bitter experiment,” he added.
The Federal Government has, however, maintained that petrol subsidy had become financially unsustainable and that its removal was necessary to free resources for development, improve government revenues and address distortions in the petroleum market.
