.Says, apologise to Nigerians or be rejected over petrol price hike
By Omeiza Ajayi
ABUJA: Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC, Atiku Abubakar has alleged that the President Bola Tinubu administration has entered “full panic mode” and is now plotting to reintroduce fuel subsidy through the back door ahead of the 2027 election, after nearly four years of branding subsidy as economic sacrilege.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, on Wednesday, Atiku said his team had received credible intelligence on the development, describing it as electoral desperation rather than compassion.
While accusing the government of pursuing a strategy that is “as cynical as it is obvious: impoverish Nigerians for three and a half years, wait until the 2027 election is within sight, then hurriedly return a fraction of the relief you denied them and expect gratitude at the ballot box”, Atiku said “Tinubu wants Nigerians to forget the pain because an election is approaching. They will not.”
Atiku, who welcomed a call by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria IPMAN for government intervention with domestic refiners to reduce petrol prices, said the association’s position had vindicated the policy principle behind his own plan to make energy affordable.
He said; “IPMAN has come late to this conversation, but it has come to the right conclusion. The association is now saying that government cannot simply stand aside while petrol prices punish Nigerians and that deliberate subsidy around domestic refining can help bring prices down. That is precisely the policy principle President Tinubu and his gang of jesters have spent weeks trying to ridicule”.
The former vice president said Tinubu’s argument had depended on “deliberately confusing the import-subsidy bazaar and a transparent, production-linked intervention that strengthens Nigerian refining and delivers measurable relief to Nigerian consumers.”
Illustrating the distinction, he said, “the difference between the import subsidy and the policy I have put before Nigerians is the difference between a farmer who harvests cassava, sells it all cheaply and then travels elsewhere to buy expensive garri for his family, and one who builds the capacity to process his cassava at home.”
He described it as “economic foolishness” for Nigeria to possess crude oil, fail to maximise its processing at home, and then tell citizens that unaffordable fuel is the price of reform, adding that his guiding principle was that “subsidy follows the barrel.”
Citing the DailyFuels Fuel Affordability Index, Atiku said Nigeria ranks 91st on affordability, with the average Nigerian requiring about 44 minutes of work to afford one litre of petrol, and roughly 29.5 hours of work for a 40-litre tank.
“That is the Tinubu economy in one statistic. Petrol may appear cheap when converted into dollars and compared with richer countries, but Nigerians do not earn American or European salaries,” he said, adding that a “tomato seller experiences it when the truck bringing her produce charges more, her own transport fare rises and her customers arrive at the market with less money in their pockets.”
Atiku invited IPMAN to move beyond commentary and join his camp in implementing the policy from 2027, saying the marketers “know where distortions occur, where leakages hide and where good policy can be sabotaged between the refinery gate and the filling station.”
He said subsidy under his administration would “strengthen domestic refining, expand local capacity, prevent arbitrage, operate transparently and deliver measurable relief at the pump.”
Atiku however clarified that the invitation was not an attempt to rescue Tinubu from his own policy failures. “IPMAN is being invited to help us build the future with Nigerians, not to rescue President Tinubu from the economic hole he dug for himself,” he said, accusing the President of choosing “dogma over compassion, propaganda over pragmatism and hardship over humanity.”
He argued that IPMAN’s position had exposed how isolated Tinubu’s stance had become within the downstream petroleum sector, noting that “the serious policy conversation is moving towards domestic refining, affordability and consumer relief,” while “Tinubu’s propaganda is stranded somewhere behind it.”
He said Tinubu now had two honourable options before him: “apologise to Atiku Abubakar and, more importantly, to the Nigerian people for ridiculing a policy principle that major petroleum-sector players are beginning to recognise and quietly withdraw from the 2027 presidential contest or wait to be rejected at the polls in January”.
“This is not about Tinubu or Atiku. It is about Nigerians. You cannot empty their pockets, call it reform, ridicule the ideas intended to make their lives affordable and then ask them to reward you with another four years.
“Tinubu may continue defending expensive petrol. We will continue building the coalition that will make Nigeria affordable again from 2027. Tinubu made Nigeria expensive. Atiku will make Nigeria affordable again”, he added.
The post 2027: Tinubu panicky, plots to reintroduce subsidy through backdoor, Atiku alleges appeared first on Vanguard News.