Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has rejected President Bola Tinubu’s criticism of his proposal to reintroduce a form of petrol subsidy, accusing the administration of worsening the cost-of-living crisis despite increased government revenues.
Atiku, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, said the President was not in a position to lecture Nigerians on economic management after the removal of the petrol subsidy and the liberalisation of the foreign exchange market.
In a statement issued on Friday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku argued that the policies had contributed to higher inflation, transport fares, petrol prices and household expenses.
The former vice-president had on Wednesday said he would restore the petrol subsidy if elected.
“If elected, I will bring back the oil subsidy, and whoever stole the money must refund it,” he said.
Tinubu rejected the proposal, describing it as evidence of “serious ignorance on governance and economy” during a meeting with Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke at the Presidential Villa on Thursday.
Responding, Atiku said the administration had failed to adequately address the consequences of the subsidy removal.
“The real ignorance is believing suffering is economic policy. President Tinubu removed the subsidy from Nigerians’ pockets, but he is yet to remove the questions from his books,” he said.
Atiku proposes targeted intervention
Atiku said his proposal did not amount to a return to the subsidy regime that existed before Tinubu assumed office in May 2023.
Instead, he described it as a temporary and targeted production-support mechanism aimed at increasing domestic refining capacity and protecting consumers from sharp price shocks.
He argued that economic policies must respond to prevailing circumstances, which he said had changed considerably since the subsidy was removed.
“Economic prescriptions respond to prevailing conditions. But other things are no longer equal in Tinubu’s Nigeria,” he said.
According to Atiku, removing the subsidy without sufficient measures to cushion its effects triggered a chain reaction across the economy, resulting in higher petrol and transport prices as well as rising food costs, while the naira also depreciated significantly.
“Atiku is not proposing the resurrection of the corrupt, open-ended subsidy bazaar. He proposes a targeted, capped, budgeted, time-bound and independently audited production-support mechanism tied to domestic production and protected against arbitrage,” the statement said.
Atiku accused the Tinubu administration of taking a rigid approach to subsidy removal despite what he described as its severe economic consequences.
“President Tinubu pronounced first and searched for a plan afterwards. Atiku studied the consequences and produced a solution,” he said.
The ADC candidate also challenged the Federal Government to explain what he described as continuing petroleum under-recoveries and energy-security costs reflected in the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
He cited figures which he said totalled about N17.5 trillion, including approximately N7.13 trillion in energy-security costs and another N8.67 trillion in related obligations.
“If subsidy is dead, why are under-recoveries alive?” Atiku asked. “If corruption was eliminated, why has opacity survived?”
He argued that Nigerians were bearing the cost of the reforms through higher petrol prices and living expenses while questions remained over financial obligations in the petroleum sector.
“President Tinubu has given Nigerians the worst of both worlds: he removed the relief but retained the opaque costs. Nigerians got the pain; government kept the bill,” he said.
The Federal Government has consistently maintained that petrol subsidy had become financially unsustainable and that its removal was necessary to free resources for development, increase public revenues and address distortions in the petroleum market.
The administration has also highlighted increased allocations from the Federation Account as one of the benefits of the reform, particularly for state governments that had struggled to meet salary obligations and other recurrent expenses.
Atiku, however, rejected the argument that higher government allocations amounted to evidence of economic success when ordinary Nigerians were simultaneously losing purchasing power.
“You do not build a federation by impoverishing citizens so that Abuja can send bigger cheques to governors,” he said.
He argued that larger monthly allocations could encourage states to rely on federal transfers rather than expand their productive economies and internally generated revenues.
“Why undertake difficult reforms, industrialise or expand productive capacity when Abuja provides an ever-growing monthly cheque?” he asked.
“That is not fiscal federalism. It is fiscal sedation and rascality.”
The former vice-president also renewed his call for the Federal Government to account for about N30 trillion in Federation Account revenues, deductions, savings and transfers which he said he had previously asked it to reconcile.
He further questioned the N12.8 trillion Service-Wide Vote contained in the 2026 budget, arguing that the administration should demonstrate the same urgency in addressing questions about public finances as it does in responding to political criticism.
“If President Tinubu can mobilise an army of propagandists to attack Atiku within hours, surely he can find one accountant to explain his books,” he said.
Atiku maintained that the success of economic reforms should be judged by their impact on citizens rather than by the size of government revenues.
“Economic reform is not measured by how fat government accounts become while citizens grow poorer,” he said, adding that “an economy exists to serve human beings, not family and friends”.
He described the administration’s economic programme as an experiment that had imposed significant hardship on Nigerians and accused the presidency of mistaking public endurance for evidence of policy success.
Atiku urged Nigerians to reject what he described as another four years of policies that would deepen economic hardship, insisting that his proposed petroleum-sector intervention was designed to support domestic production while reducing reliance on subsidies over time.
“Nigerians have paid enough for Tinubunomics. They should not be sentenced to another four years of the bitter experiment,” he said.
