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| Abubakar Atiku |
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu of borrowing the core idea of his proposed production subsidy for locally refined petrol while stripping it of the elements that would make it sustainable, leaving Nigerians with only a temporary 30-day discount at NNPC Limited stations. Speaking on Friday at the inauguration of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential campaign council in Abuja, Atiku framed the government’s move as both an admission of policy failure and an incomplete, election-timed gesture.
“Bola, you have borrowed the idea but missed the lesson. You had a production subsidy and reduced it to a 30-day gesture,” Atiku said. He likened the president to “a dull student who copied his classmate’s answer” so blindly that he copied the classmate’s name at the top of the exam paper and then demanded marks for original thinking. “You copied my production subsidy proposal. Nothing wrong about that. You stripped away the part that makes it work and handed Nigerians a 30-day discount. Where is the rest of the answer? Bola, please, you see why it is good to go to school.”
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He demanded an apology, noting that the Tinubu administration had previously dismissed his ideas as unworkable or evidence of economic ignorance.
“Now in a desperate and clumsy retreat, you have shamelessly embraced the principle you mocked,” Atiku added. In related remarks, he described the discount as a “sugar rush masquerading as economic policy” — temporary relief followed by the same high prices — and questioned what happens on day 31 for families, transporters and businesses that cannot plan around a one-month window.
The government’s announcement and clarification
The comments came a day after Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Taiwo Oyedele announced the measure at a press conference in Abuja. The federal government said petrol dispensed by NNPC Limited would carry a discount for an initial 30 days, with priority for public transporters nationwide. Oyedele stressed that this was not a return to the old subsidy regime: the government (or NNPC Retail) would sell at cost, funded from the retailer’s margin rather than the budget or Federation Account. He also indicated the government was negotiating a ceiling around ₦1,350 per litre on the ex-gantry or landing cost, to be reviewed monthly, so that pump prices would not swing with every movement in global crude or the exchange rate. Forward sales of crude to domestic refiners were also under consideration.
Subsequent clarifications from Oyedele reinforced that NNPC Retail buys from Dangote Refinery and other suppliers at market prices, then reduces its own retail margin (said to be under 5% of the pump price). No public funds are involved, distinguishing it from the pre-2023 under-recovery system or any sale of federation crude below market value. Petrol prices in recent weeks have hovered in the ₦1,300–₦1,400+ range at many stations depending on location, with NNPC outlets reporting figures such as around ₦1,355–₦1,370 in major centres in early October 2026 after earlier adjustments.
From “subsidy is gone” to temporary relief
The dispute sits against more than three years of dramatic change in Nigeria’s fuel pricing. On 29 May 2023, Tinubu declared in his inauguration speech that “subsidy is gone.” Pump prices that had been roughly ₦185–₦197 per litre jumped sharply — first into the ₦400–₦500 range, then higher amid naira flotation, global oil movements and supply issues, reaching well over ₦1,000 and later averaging in the ₦1,200–₦1,400 band in many places by 2025–2026. The old subsidy had become fiscally unsustainable, consuming trillions of naira annually (over ₦4 trillion in some earlier years) that critics said disproportionately benefited smugglers, elites and middlemen while starving health, education and infrastructure. Savings from removal have been cited by the government in the region of ₦15.8 trillion cumulatively in certain periods, with higher FAAC allocations to states and local governments.
Yet the social cost has been severe. Higher fuel prices fed directly into transport fares, food logistics and overall inflation, squeezing households and small businesses. Successive governments had tried and partially retreated from subsidy reform (notably Jonathan’s 2012 attempt that triggered #OccupyNigeria protests). Tinubu’s decisive removal marked the longest-lasting break with the old regime. Atiku and other opposition voices have long argued that the transition lacked adequate, lasting cushions, turning a necessary fiscal correction into prolonged hardship.
Atiku’s production-subsidy alternative
Atiku’s proposal, reiterated in his September 2026 State of the Nation-style address and subsequent comments, is deliberately different from both the old import-heavy subsidy and the new temporary discount. He advocates a targeted, capped, budgeted and independently audited production subsidy for petroleum products refined in Nigeria and sold to Nigerians. Support would follow the barrel refined domestically — lowering the effective cost of crude feedstock to qualifying public and private refineries (including modular ones) under strict conditions: domestic-supply obligations, transparent pricing that passes benefits to consumers, electronic tracking, verification of volumes, and penalties for diversion or fraud.
Imports would be excluded. The aim is to encourage local refining capacity, create jobs and keep more economic activity at home while delivering lower pump prices without forcing refiners to sell at a loss.
He has framed it as moving subsidy “from importation to production, from middlemen to Nigerian refineries.” In September he even offered to share the plan with the government in the national interest. Critics of the idea, including voices aligned with the ruling party, have questioned its fiscal cost (analysts have floated very large annual figures depending on assumptions about volumes, discount depth and crude prices), compatibility with the Petroleum Industry Act’s free-market pricing provisions, and practical enforceability to ensure refiners actually pass savings through rather than capturing rents. Atiku insists proper design — hard ceilings, audits, rules-based allocation — addresses those risks.
Political and economic angles
The timing is inescapable. With the 2027 general election on the horizon, fuel prices remain one of Nigeria’s most sensitive political issues. Atiku’s ADC campaign is making the cost of living and economic management its centrepiece; the inauguration of the campaign council provided a high-profile platform to land the accusation. Government supporters counter that the 30-day measure is a commercial decision by NNPC Retail offering limited, targeted relief without reopening the fiscal floodgates of the past, and that broader reforms (including the growth of domestic refining capacity, notably Dangote) are the sustainable path. Atiku portrays the discount as an “election package” or “panic-driven publicity stunt” that proves the pain has become politically impossible to ignore while still falling short of structural change.
Economically, a short-term margin reduction or cost-price sale at NNPC stations can ease pressure for some motorists and transporters for a few weeks, especially if prioritised for public transport. It does not, however, alter underlying landing costs driven by crude prices, exchange rates and logistics, nor does it create the incentive structure for expanded domestic refining that a properly designed production support mechanism might.
Families and businesses need predictability for budgeting and investment; a countdown clock does not provide it. At the same time, any large-scale production subsidy would require rigorous safeguards to avoid recreating the opacity and leakage that plagued the old system — a point both sides of the debate acknowledge in principle even as they disagree on design and timing.
The episode also highlights the evolving role of private refining. Dangote Refinery’s operations have already begun to reshape supply dynamics and pricing references. Debates over whether government should dictate prices or support producers without bankrupting them remain live.
Atiku has accused the presidency of distorting refiners’ legitimate concerns about being forced to sell below cost; the government maintains market-based approaches are preferable.
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Broader implications
Nigeria’s fuel-price politics have long mixed fiscal reality, populism, rent-seeking and genuine distributional concerns. The 2023 removal was a high-stakes gamble that improved the fiscal ledger and reduced a major distortion but imposed heavy short-term costs on ordinary citizens. Temporary discounts and production-subsidy proposals represent competing ways of managing the residual pain. Neither is a silver bullet: the former is limited by design, the latter depends on credible implementation, fiscal discipline and institutional capacity that Nigeria has often lacked.
As the 2027 contest takes shape, expect this argument to recur. Atiku is positioning himself as the candidate offering structured relief tied to local industry; the Tinubu administration is defending its reform record while offering calibrated, non-budgetary cushions. Nigerians living with elevated transport and food costs will judge both by results rather than rhetoric. The 30-day window will close.
The deeper questions about how to make energy more affordable without bankrupting the state or stifling domestic production will remain.
Samuel O. Sulaimon is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Naijapiz. He covers News, Sports, Finance, Faiths, Education, Technology.
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