Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has vowed that “not even Tinubus 100 million” can stop him from reinstating a targeted subsidy to protect Nigerians from hardship caused by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s fuel pricing policies.
Reacting on Sunday through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku accused the Tinubu administration of committing “one of the biggest economic frauds” by claiming that it had removed subsidies while providing tax credits and tax incentives to oil industry operators.
“Tinubu stood at Eagle Square and declared that the subsidy was gone. Petrol prices skyrocketed, transportation costs skyrocketed, food prices followed, businesses collapsed and household purchasing power collapsed,” Atiku said.
“But when major oil investors knock on Tinubu’s door, the sermon changes. Suddenly, government intervention is good economics; tax credits are necessary; tax concessions are strategic; and private investment must be ‘de-risked.’ Apparently, subsidies are only bad when poor Nigerians benefit from them.”
He cited the administration’s Offshore Oil and Gas Project Incentives Framework, which allows qualifying oil developments to receive production tax credits from $3 to $4.50 per barrel, with supplemental credits that can bring the combined benefit up to $11.50 per barrel.
Atiku also pointed to NNPC’s audited accounts, which recorded around £4.84 trillion in 2023 and £7.13 trillion in 2024 as “energy security expenditure and related deficits”.
According to him, NNPC explained that the expenditure arose from differences in the exchange rates of imported PMS after the subsidy was declared gone.
“So where exactly did the subsidy go? If Nigerians were paying market prices because ‘the subsidy is gone’, why was the Federation still saddled with trillions of naira in under-recovery and energy security costs?” asked.
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“If such an intervention was legally and economically necessary when Tinubu authorized it, on what intellectual basis are Mr Tinubu and his spokespersons now abusing Atiku for proposing a targeted, limited, budgeted, independently audited and beneficial intervention for Nigerians?”
Atiku described the situation as “selective economics” and “classic economic apartheid,” where poor Nigerians face market forces while big oil investors enjoy government protection.
“This is the Tinubu doctrine: socialize pain at the bottom and provide incentives at the top,” he said. “You cannot subsidize capital and criminalize aid to citizens. You cannot offer cushions at the top and call reform for the suffering at the bottom.”
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate said the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan (AERP) does not propose a return to the opaque subsidy regime of the past.
“What it proposes is a targeted, limited, transparently budgeted and independently audited intervention with a clearly defined exit mechanism, accompanied by accelerated internal refinement, competition, mass transportation and measures to restore household purchasing power,” Shaibu said.
“If Tinubu understands the logic of reducing the cost and risk taken by an investor to stimulate production, why does he suddenly become economically illiterate when the proposal is to temporarily reduce the overwhelming burden on Nigerian households?”
Atiku demanded transparency on the beneficiaries of oil credits and tax incentives, saying Nigerians deserve to know the value of the revenue delivered and whether local investors have equal access.
“The test of economic reform is not how loudly a president announces that ‘subsidies are gone’; it is whether citizens are better off, businesses are productive, jobs are being created, and household incomes can sustain basic living costs,” he added.
“A government cannot preach unbridled market forces to the poor while practicing interventionist economics for its rich foreign friends. That is not economic reform. It is classic economic apartheid.”
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