Tinubu govt can’t claim to have ended subsidy while funding fuel shortfalls – Atiku

The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has revealed that no amount of opposition from President Bola Tinubu would stop him from restoring a targeted fuel subsidy if elected.

He insisted that his proposal is different from the old subsidy system.

Atiku made the remark in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu.

“The government’s own spending records contradict its claim that fuel subsidy has been completely removed,” he said.

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Atiku maintained that he would implement a targeted, transparent and time-bound fuel subsidy plan.

“The NNPC audited financial statements for 2023 and 2024 showed that the government was still absorbing petrol price shortfalls, even though the expenditure was described as energy-security expenses,” he said.

He argued that changing the name of the expenditure did not change its effect on public finances.

“Nigerians do not eat semantics. Whether government calls it subsidy, under-recovery, shortfall or energy security, public resources were being used to bridge a gap between economic cost and the price at which petrol was sold,” he said.

He argued that the government could not claim to have ended fuel subsidy while continuing to fund similar price shortfalls under a different name in its accounts.

Atiku also accused the Federal Government of applying different economic standards to ordinary Nigerians and large oil investors.

He pointed to existing tax credits and incentives available to petroleum operators, saying the government was willing to support corporate interests while asking citizens to bear the full burden of economic reforms.

“The government can protect a multibillion-dollar oil investment from risk, yet it says protecting the Nigerian worker from crushing hardship is bad economics,” he said.

The former vice president said his proposed fuel subsidy would not be a return to what he called the “opaque and corruption-ridden” system of the past.

Instead, he said it would be targeted, capped, transparently budgeted and independently audited, with a clear exit plan, alongside efforts to boost domestic refining, improve public transportation and restore household purchasing power.