Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has fired back at President Bola Tinubu over his criticism of the former vice-president’s proposal to reintroduce government support for petrol.
Atiku said the Tinubu administration’s economic reforms had worsened the cost-of-living crisis, arguing that higher government revenues could not be celebrated as economic success while Nigerians struggled with rising transport, food and household expenses.
The former vice-president spoke through a statement issued on Friday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu.
His response followed Tinubu’s criticism of his proposal during a meeting with Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday.
Tinubu had described the proposal as a “demonstration of serious ignorance on governance and economy.”
Atiku responded that “the real ignorance is believing suffering is economic policy,” accusing the administration of failing to adequately cushion Nigerians from the effects of the petrol subsidy removal.
The former vice-president, who is the ADC presidential candidate for the 2027 election, said his proposal should not be confused with the previous open-ended subsidy regime.
According to him, the proposed intervention would be targeted, capped, budgeted, time-bound and independently audited, with government support tied to domestic production and safeguards against arbitrage.
Atiku said the objective would be to encourage domestic refining while protecting consumers from severe price shocks.
“Economic prescriptions respond to prevailing conditions. But other things are no longer equal in Tinubu’s Nigeria,” he said.
The former vice-president argued that Nigeria’s economic circumstances had changed considerably since Tinubu announced the end of petrol subsidy in May 2023.
He linked the policy to higher petrol prices, transportation costs and food prices, as well as the sharp depreciation of the naira.
Atiku also questioned the government’s claim that subsidy-related costs had been eliminated, citing figures from NNPCL’s financial records.
He pointed to about ₦17.5tn in energy-security and petroleum under-recovery-related costs, including approximately ₦7.13tn classified as energy-security expenditure and ₦8.67tn in under-recoveries.
“If subsidy is dead, why are under-recoveries alive?” Atiku asked.
He also accused the government of retaining what he described as opaque petroleum-sector costs despite removing the direct relief previously enjoyed by consumers.
“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 Presidency has maintained that the subsidy removal was necessary to end what it considered an unsustainable fiscal burden and redirect government resources towards development.
Tinubu has also cited increased Federation Account allocations as one of the benefits of the reform, particularly for states that previously struggled to meet salary and pension obligations.
Atiku rejected that argument, saying higher allocations to governments should not be presented as evidence of economic progress when ordinary Nigerians were losing purchasing power.
He argued that states should instead strengthen their productive economies, attract investment and increase internally generated revenue rather than become increasingly dependent on federal transfers.
The former vice-president also renewed his demand for greater transparency in the management of public revenues, including Federation Account receipts and deductions, as well as expenditure contained in the 2026 budget.
The clash over subsidy comes as the 2027 presidential contest intensifies, with economic hardship emerging as one of the central issues likely to shape voter sentiment.
Atiku said the success of economic reform should ultimately be judged by its effect on citizens rather than the size of government revenues.
“Economic reform is not measured by how fat government accounts become while citizens grow poorer,” he said.
