Atiku: ‘100 Million Tinubus Can’t Stop Me’ From Restoring Targeted Fuel Subsidy

ABUJA: Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has vowed to pursue a targeted fuel subsidy for Nigerians, declaring that even “millions of his gang of economic jesters” cannot prevent him from implementing the policy.

Atiku, who is the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, made the declaration while accusing President Bola Tinubu’s administration of using the language of subsidy removal to describe its economic policies while granting fiscal concessions to oil investors.

His Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday.

Atiku questioned the Federal Government’s insistence that petrol subsidy had been eliminated, pointing to tax credits and other incentives still available to petroleum operators.

He also relied on NNPC’s audited financial statements to argue that government resources continued to cover petrol-related price differentials after the subsidy removal announcement.

“In 2023, NNPC’s accounts recorded approximately ₦4.84 trillion as energy-security expenses and related shortfalls, while its 2024 audited financial statements subsequently recorded about ₦7.13 trillion under energy-security expenses,” the statement read.

Atiku said NNPC had explained that part of the expense arose from differences between the exchange rate used to determine the regulated PMS ex-coastal price and the exchange rate prevailing when import obligations were settled.

“Government was still absorbing a price differential after Tinubu had triumphantly announced that subsidy was gone,” he said.

The former Vice President maintained that the terminology used by government to describe the expenditure was irrelevant if public funds were still being used to bridge the difference between petrol’s economic cost and its regulated selling price.

“Nigerians do not eat semantics,” Atiku said.

He added: “Whether 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.”

‘Protecting Workers Is Not Bad Economics’

Atiku further pointed to the Deep Offshore Oil and Gas Projects Incentives framework, which allows qualifying petroleum projects to access production tax credits starting at $3 and $4.50 per barrel.

He said the policy showed that government intervention was possible when it benefited large oil investments but was being rejected when aimed at easing the burden on ordinary Nigerians.

“The government can protect a multibillion-dollar oil investment from risk, yet it says protecting the Nigerian worker from crushing hardship is bad economics,” he 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.”

Atiku said his targeted subsidy proposal would not revive the previous system, which he described as “opaque and corruption-ridden.”

Instead, he proposed what he described as a targeted and controlled intervention.

The statement said the plan would involve “a targeted, capped, transparently budgeted and independently audited intervention with a clearly defined exit mechanism,” while also accelerating domestic refining, encouraging competition, expanding mass transportation and restoring household purchasing power.

Atiku also called on the government to publish details of petroleum tax concessions granted to investors, including the beneficiaries and the revenue forgone.

He accused the administration of applying different economic standards to corporations and ordinary Nigerians.

“A government cannot preach unrestrained market forces to the poor while practising interventionist economics for his rich foreign friends,” he said.

“It cannot demand sacrifice from Nigerian families while extending concessions to powerful corporate interests.”

Atiku concluded: “It cannot provide cushions for corporations and punishment for citizens and then call the resulting misery reform. That is not economic reform. It is classic economic apartheid.”

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