Former VP accuses President of running ‘one of the biggest economic frauds’ on Nigerians
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of hypocrisy over its handling of petroleum subsidies, arguing that the government cannot claim to have abolished subsidy while granting tax credits, concessions and other fiscal incentives to operators in the petroleum industry.
In a statement issued on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Mr Atiku described the celebration of subsidy removal by the Tinubu administration as “one of the biggest economic frauds” being sold to Nigerians.
“Tinubu stood at Eagle Square and declared that subsidy was gone. Petrol prices exploded, transportation costs soared, food prices followed, businesses buckled and household purchasing power collapsed,” Mr Atiku said.
“Nigerians were told there was no alternative and that enduring this pain was the necessary price of economic reform. But when major oil investors knock on Tinubu’s door, the sermon changes. Suddenly, government intervention is good economics; tax credits are necessary; fiscal concessions are strategic; and private investment must be ‘de-risked.’ Apparently, subsidy is only evil when poor Nigerians benefit from it,” he added.
The former vice president cited the government’s Deep Offshore Oil and Gas Projects Incentives framework, which, according to him, provides qualifying petroleum developments with production tax credits beginning at $3 and $4.50 per barrel, with supplementary credits capable of taking the combined benefit to as much as $11.50 per barrel.
He also questioned the administration’s reliance on the Petroleum Industry Act to justify the end of petrol subsidy, pointing to audited accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited which recorded approximately N4.84 trillion as energy-security expenses in 2023 and about N7.13 trillion in 2024.
“In plain English, government was still absorbing a price differential after Tinubu had triumphantly announced that subsidy was gone,” Mr Atiku said.
“By the way, @officialABAT did not abolish subsidy; he merely changed its beneficiaries. He took it from the petrol tanks of struggling Nigerians and repackaged it as waivers and incentives for his big oil friends,” Shaibu wrote on X, quoting the former vice president.
Mr Atiku described the administration’s approach as “classic economic apartheid”—favouring corporate interests over citizens. He insisted that his proposed targeted intervention under the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan would protect vulnerable citizens without returning the country to the opaque and corruption-ridden subsidy regime of the past.
“You cannot abolish subsidy at the podium and resurrect it in the accounts under an alias,” he declared.
The former vice president has vowed that “even 100 million Tinubus” cannot stop him from pushing for the restoration of a targeted subsidy for Nigerians.
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