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| Peter Obi |
Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), has declared that he would restore petrol subsidy if elected in 2027—but only after stripping out the corruption he says has long defined the scheme. The statement, made during a BBC interview on Tuesday, marks a clear evolution in his public position and injects fresh intensity into what is already one of the most potent economic battlegrounds of the coming election cycle.
“From day one, I’ve talked about subsidy. I talked about corruption; corruption is the problem of subsidy,” Obi said. Asked directly whether he would bring the regime back, he replied: “Yes. But remember, I have qualified it, not with the corruption that’s associated with it. I’ll remove the corruption and retain the subsidy.”
He went further on the mechanics of anti-corruption: “If you are not stealing, if you are not involved, your wife and family are not involved, you reduce it by 50 per cent.” On former President Muhammadu Buhari’s record, Obi was blunt: “He was not in charge. The difference is that I’ll be in charge.” He also rejected any suggestion that he should step aside for a consensus opposition candidate, insisting: “We don’t need to step down. We need to do the right thing.”
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From Removal Advocate to Conditional Restoration
The statement sits in tension with Obi’s 2023 Labour Party campaign, when he argued that subsidy funds should be redirected to education, health and infrastructure. As recently as August 2026, at the Nigerian Bar Association conference in Port Harcourt, he still defended the principle of removal. “I subscribe and I maintain that we need to remove subsidy. Mismanagement of the proceeds should not be the reason for not removing it,” he said then, criticising the Tinubu administration’s handling of the savings while rejecting a simple reversal.
That stance began shifting in late September. At a town hall in Sokoto for the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket, Obi told supporters: “People are talking about subsidy but what is all about it is corruption. By removing the corruption, I assure you that we will bring back subsidy.” The BBC interview now crystallises the position more firmly.
His running mate, former Kano governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, had already prepared the ground. In a September interview with Arise TV, Kwankwaso said an NDC government would reintroduce subsidy “in our own way,” emphasising investment in domestic refining so that petrol would be available at a “reasonable price.” The NDC camp later backed the formulation. The ticket’s emerging consensus appears to be a hybrid: restore some form of price support while claiming to eliminate the opacity, diversion and smuggling that made the old system notorious.
The Tinubu Benchmark and the Human Cost
President Bola Tinubu’s “fuel subsidy is gone” declaration on inauguration day, 29 May 2023, remains the defining economic decision of his administration. Official figures released in 2026 claim the reform generated ₦15.8 trillion in additional resources for the federation between June 2023 and December 2025—roughly ₦5.4 trillion to the federal government, ₦6.5 trillion to states and ₦3.9 trillion to local governments. Federation Account allocations have risen sharply; some states that previously struggled with salaries now report improved fiscal positions.
Yet the household impact has been severe. Pump prices that stood near ₦185–₦200 per litre in May 2023 climbed past ₦600 within weeks and have hovered above ₦1,100–₦1,400 in many locations more recently, according to National Bureau of Statistics tracking and market reports. Transport costs, food prices and overall inflation followed. Poverty estimates have risen in successive years.
The government argues the alternative would have been worse—potential black-market prices above ₦3,000 and widespread salary defaults—but for millions of Nigerians the immediate experience has been a sharp reduction in purchasing power.
This gap between fiscal numbers and lived reality is precisely the political opening opposition candidates are seeking to exploit. Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress has been more straightforward in calling for restoration. Obi’s formulation attempts a middle path: acknowledge the corruption critique that long justified removal, while promising the relief that voters, especially in the North, visibly demand.
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Structural Questions That Remain
Several hard questions hang over any restoration pledge. Nigeria’s four state-owned refineries have remained largely non-functional for years despite repeated turnaround claims. The Dangote Refinery has begun altering the supply landscape, but full domestic self-sufficiency is not yet achieved. A return to broad subsidy without a transparent, well-audited mechanism risks recreating the very leakages—smuggling to neighbouring countries, inflated consumption figures, and middleman capture—that made the old regime fiscally toxic.
Obi’s personal-example theory of anti-corruption (the president and family must stay clean) is politically resonant, yet historical experience suggests institutional design, procurement transparency, real-time consumption data and independent auditing matter more than individual virtue. His claim that he would be “in charge,” unlike Buhari, invites scrutiny of how an Obi administration would structure the petroleum downstream sector and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
The NDC ticket itself still shows signs of dual messaging. Obi’s language centres on removing corruption first; Kwankwaso’s emphasises delivering lower prices through refining investment. Whether these resolve into a coherent policy or remain campaign rhetoric will become clearer as the 2027 race intensifies.
Why the Issue Will Dominate
Fuel pricing cuts across regional, class and partisan lines. In the North-West, where Kwankwaso’s political base is strong, cheaper petrol is widely viewed as a tangible measure of government responsiveness. In urban centres and among younger voters who powered Obi’s 2023 showing, the cost-of-living crisis remains a daily grievance.
Tinubu’s team will continue to argue that the reform has placed public finances on a more sustainable footing and that any reversal would be fiscally reckless. Opposition candidates will keep pointing to the hardship and promising smarter alternatives.
Obi’s latest position is therefore less a pure policy conversion than a recognition of political reality. By framing restoration as conditional on a successful war against corruption, he attempts to retain the reformist brand that defined his earlier campaigns while addressing the immediate economic pain that many Nigerians feel. Whether that synthesis proves credible—or collapses under the weight of implementation details and fiscal arithmetic—will be one of the central tests of the 2027 contest.
The debate is no longer simply “subsidy or no subsidy.” It is about whether any Nigerian government can deliver affordable energy without recreating the opaque, leakage-prone system that once consumed trillions of naira with limited public benefit. Obi has now placed his answer on the record. The electorate will ultimately decide if the promise is substantive or strategic.
Samuel O. Sulaimon is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Naijapiz. He covers News, Sports, Finance, Faiths, Education, Technology.
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