The signal this week is unmistakable: fuel subsidy declared dead in 2023, is returning as a defining issue of the 2027 presidential election.
Petrol now sells for about ₦1,400 per litre in Lagos and Abuja and as much as ₦1,500 in parts of northern Nigeria. Diesel has crossed ₦2,000. This is happening despite the Dangote refinery operating at full capacity, exposing the limits of domestic refining when crude costs and fuel prices remain tied to global markets.
For President Bola Tinubu, the renewed price shock threatens the political case for his flagship economic reform. For the opposition, it provides a powerful campaign issue, but also demands credible answers about what would replace the present system.
Subsidy By Another Name?
Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, has promised to reintroduce a form of subsidy if elected. His proposal is not presented as a return to the old arrangement under which government paid importers the difference between landing cost and the controlled pump price.
Atiku’s representatives describe it as a production subsidy “located in the barrel”: domestic crude would be supplied to Nigerian refineries at an incentivised price, with the savings expected to reach consumers through cheaper petroleum products. The plan would still reduce government revenue and require transparent pricing, enforcement and safeguards against the abuses that undermined the previous regime.
The Nigeria Democratic Congress has now entered the same political territory. Its vice-presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, said on Tuesday that a Peter Obi-led government would bring back subsidy “in a different form.” He pointed to government investment in refineries and increased domestic production as possible ways of delivering fuel at a reasonable price.
The language matters. Neither camp is openly campaigning for the opaque import-subsidy structure of the past. Both are acknowledging, however, that leaving consumers entirely exposed to market prices is becoming politically and socially difficult.
Tinubu’s position remains that there will be no return to subsidy. His government argues that the old system was fiscally unsustainable, encouraged corruption and diverted money from infrastructure and public services. That argument remains economically defensible. But its political strength depends on Nigerians seeing clear benefits from the savings.
At ₦1,400 per litre, that evidence is becoming harder for households to detect.
Who Is In Charge?
The economic pressure is being compounded by a constitutional controversy over the President’s absence from Nigeria.
Tinubu departed the country on August 30 for what the Presidency described as a three-week annual vacation. Atiku has questioned whether the President transmitted a written declaration to the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives empowering Vice-President Kashim Shettima to act in his absence. He says no evidence of such a letter has been made public and has challenged the Presidency to publish it if it exists.
That distinction is important. The absence of a publicly released letter does not by itself prove that no letter was transmitted. But the Constitution is unambiguous about the required procedure.
Section 145 states that whenever the President proceeds on vacation or is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of office, he “shall transmit” a written declaration to the leadership of the National Assembly, after which the Vice-President performs those functions as Acting President. If the President fails to transmit the declaration within 21 days, the National Assembly is required by a simple majority in each chamber to mandate the Vice-President to act.
The Presidency and National Assembly therefore owe Nigerians a simple factual clarification: Was the letter transmitted, and on what date? If it was, publication would settle the controversy. If it was not, the issue moves beyond opposition rhetoric to constitutional compliance.
These two controversies meet at the same point: public confidence in government.
The subsidy debate asks whether economic reform can remain legitimate when citizens bear immediate costs but struggle to identify the promised gains. The presidential-absence controversy asks whether constitutional procedures are being treated as binding rules or administrative conveniences.
The opposition will use both issues to argue that the government is simultaneously absent from the economic pain of citizens and insufficiently accountable about the exercise of presidential power. The government’s strongest response would be evidence: disclose the constitutional communication, account clearly for subsidy savings and present a credible plan for cushioning further fuel-price shocks.
Watch for a formal Presidency or National Assembly statement on the Section 145 letter. Also watch whether Atiku and the NDC produce detailed, costed subsidy proposals rather than attractive campaign formulations.
Most importantly, watch the pump price. Every additional increase will turn an economic argument into a more urgent electoral choice.
Subsidy is back; not yet as government policy, but as a campaign promise and a test of Tinubu’s reform record. At the same time, questions over presidential authority have given the opposition a second line of attack.
The administration now faces two demands it cannot answer with political assurances alone: show Nigerians where the reform benefits are, and show them that constitutional power has been properly transferred when required.
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