By means of Sunday Dare
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s contemporary press convention in Abuja—the place he attacked NNPC Retail’s 30-day cut price on petrol charge and a modulation framework—is a seminal instance of shallow, election-laced demagoguery.
Atiku “Kachalla”, utterly unplugged from world realities and ate up by way of an unbridled lust for energy, is a Lone Ranger.
In the UK, for the reason that global oil marketplace impacts native pump costs, Top Minister Andy Burnham presented Britons a Google Maps hyperlink to search out the most productive gasoline costs. Google Maps’ Gas Costs function is helping drivers evaluate near-real-time petrol and diesel costs at native forecourts.
In The united states, President Trump signed an govt order titled “Emergency Tax Aid on Diesel Gas” on October 5, 2026 and introduced a diesel provide care for Russia, no longer minding if it derails his avowed dedication to finish the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In just about 10 different nations, leaders are using more than a few method to offer reduction for electorate. However in Nigeria, a President provides the similar, and a faulty presidential candidate chooses to bop at the sufferings of Nigerians and exploit it for political good points.
For many years, political opportunism in Nigeria has depended on a unmarried, poisonous method: exploit transient transitional discomfort, enchantment to emotional cynicism, and promise mathematically inconceivable fast fixes to a complicated voters.
Calling a calibrated, multi-layered financial stabilisation technique a “panic-driven gimmick” unearths greater than partisan bitterness; it exposes a profound, structural lack of information of world power dynamics, fiscal mechanics, and the obvious mathematics of recent Nigeria.
Atiku’s soundbite-driven critique depends on emotional bait, attempting to shop for long term votes with reasonable sentimental appeals whilst ignoring the structural rot that President Tinubu’s management has systematically dismantled over the past 3 years.
Atiku’s try to place himself because the “good pupil” instructing financial coverage falls aside beneath even mild scrutiny.
First, it’s sheer absurdity {that a} guy who graduated from a college of hygiene dares to name a firstclass accounting graduate a lifeless pupil.
2d, Atiku’s proposal for a blanket “manufacturing subsidy” isn’t another financial fashion—this is a unhealthy mathematical myth wrapped in political deceit.
Unhinged, Atiku Abubakar arrogantly claims that President Tinubu copied his financial homework whilst stripping away the core component that makes it paintings: the “manufacturing subsidy.”
However allow us to read about the real numbers that Atiku intentionally conceals from the Nigerian public.
As Coordinating Minister of the Economic system and Minister of Finance Taiwo Oyedele obviously articulated on Channels TV, Nigeria lately produces about 1.8 million barrels of crude oil according to day (bpd) for a inhabitants of over 200 million folks. Simplistic populists like Atiku intentionally mislead electorate by way of pretending that the Federal Executive without delay owns all 1.8 million barrels and will distribute or cut price them at will.
Below complicated Joint Ventures (JVs) and Manufacturing Sharing Contracts (PSCs) signed over many years, manufacturing prices, royalties, and profit-oil sharing ratios critically scale back the fairness crude to be had to the state. After accounting for those statutory and contractual tasks, Nigeria has fewer than 700,000 barrels according to day of unencumbered “loose crude” to present away.
Mega-refineries just like the Dangote Petroleum Refinery require immense day by day feedstock that a ways exceeds what the state can freely supply with out breaching present global provide contracts or bankrupting nationwide revenues.
Because of this, Dangote and different home refiners will have to complement native provides by way of uploading crude from global markets.
To suggest a blanket “centered manufacturing subsidy” on crude with out the bodily, unencumbered quantity to again it up is natural financial illiteracy. It invitations the very opacity, fraudulent round-tripping, and financial haemorrhage that crippled Nigeria for many years beneath the previous subsidy regime.
Evaluate Nigeria’s numbers with the ones of alternative world oil manufacturers. The US produces over 10 million barrels according to day for 330 million folks, but sells petroleum strictly at market-determined costs. Qatar holds one of the global’s greatest gasoline reserves for less than 500,000 electorate, but needed to lower power subsidies considerably to care for long-term fiscal well being.
As Minister Oyedele famous, evaluating native crude allocation to native agricultural produce like garri or cassava—a deceptive analogy popularised by way of media observation—is a elementary misrepresentation of world commodity markets and contractual power economics. For Atiku to indicate that Nigeria can fund limitless manufacturing subsidies with out bankrupting the state is both financially reckless or essentially cheating.
*Value Modulation vs Subsidy Recovery: Unpacking the 30-Day Technique*
Atiku’s try to body NNPC Retail’s resolution to forgo its cash in margin as a “go back to the gasoline subsidy” is a planned mischaracterisation designed to misinform the general public and incite public dissatisfaction. First, NNPC had presented the cut price to have a good time the 66th Independence anniversary. It simply presented to increase the cut price by way of every other 30 days.
The management’s intervention is a market-smoothing charge modulation framework, no longer a go back to unbudgeted federal spending. When NNPC Retail is of the same opinion to promote gasoline at touchdown value for 30 days right through an unparalleled world crude charge spike, it’s not writing assessments to opaque import cartels. It’s leveraging its company stability sheet to soak up non permanent world volatility, subsidized without delay by way of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Moreover, the Federal Executive’s negotiation of an intervening time N1,350 according to litre ceiling on ex-gantry prices is a structural surprise absorber, no longer charge keep an eye on. Below this framework, refiners and importers take in non permanent value spikes above the ceiling and recuperate the ones prices later when world crude costs cool or native alternate charges regulate. N1,400 as of late and N1,400 the following day supplies a ways larger financial steadiness than N1,500 as of late and N1,300 the following day.
Speedy, erratic charge swings cause rapid, panic-driven hikes in business shipping fares that hardly lower even if gasoline costs drop. The ceiling protects commuters from everlasting hikes in shipping costs. The ceiling is reviewed transparently each month in keeping with revealed value audits, combating the hidden accumulation of opaque state liabilities.
*Structural Answers: The Management’s Multi-Pronged Financial Means*
Whilst critics be offering reasonable soundbites, the Tinubu management has deployed concrete, structural insurance policies throughout all of the power and financial price chain by way of organising a state-backed strategic power reserve to unlock delicate merchandise every time world provide disruptions or non-public hoarding threaten charge steadiness—securing long-term provide with out solving marketplace costs.
President Tinubu’s management is impulsively increasing Compressed Herbal Gasoline (CNG) infrastructure in partnership with state governments. At 60-70% inexpensive than top rate motor spirit (PMS), CNG provides an everlasting structural selection for business transporters.
The federal government has secured home refining operations thru naira-for-crude preparations to insulate pump costs from foreign currencies volatility. It has offered providence taxes on power operators that try to gouge customers right through crises, explicitly earmarking the income for shipping vouchers and minimum-wage improve.
President Tinubu’s govt is already imposing the 2025 tax reform regulations to dismantle unlawful street levies and the usage of NIPOST virtual cope with codes to cut back freight and meals distribution prices tremendously.
*The Document Speaks: Concrete Dividends of the Tinubu Reforms Since 2023*
Atiku’s narrative asks Nigerians to overlook the unsustainable fiscal precipice the country confronted ahead of Would possibly 2023. The brave elimination of the poisonous gasoline subsidy and the unification of the distorted foreign currencies marketplace weren’t alternatives of comfort; they have been surgical interventions required to save lots of the Nigerian financial system from general cave in.
Regardless of world headwinds, those foundational reforms have delivered dividends throughout a couple of sectors. The multi-trillion-naira drain that starved state governments of capital for training, healthcare, and infrastructure has completely stopped.
Nigeria’s wealth now is going without delay to the 36 states and native governments. They now obtain document federal allocations thru FAAC, in contrast to prior to now, when corrupt fuel-smuggling syndicates benefited.
2d, the federal government eradicated multi-day gasoline queues. For many years, Nigerians spent days sound asleep at filling stations because of synthetic shortage, hoarding, and unpaid subsidy claims. These days, in spite of world power shocks, gasoline queues had been eliminated national as a result of marketplace forces power provide.
The harmful hole between the authentic and parallel alternate charges—which let well-connected political elites accumulate authentic greenbacks cost effectively and promote them at the black marketplace for quick billions—has been eradicated. The management has curtailed foreign money round-tripping, restoring global self belief in Nigeria’s monetary programs.
3rd, direct social protection nets and salary improve. Slightly than subsidising the gasoline tanks of rich SUV house owners, the management redirected price range into direct money transfers for hundreds of thousands of susceptible families, subsidised credit score price range for micro and small enterprises, and enhanced salary awards for civil servants.
Fourth is infrastructure enlargement and effort independence. By means of operationalising native refining thru naira-crude agreements and launching huge nationwide infrastructure tasks—such because the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Freeway, Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway, and national rail networks—Nigeria is development the bodily spine required for single-digit inflation and sustained business enlargement.
*Sophistication Over Demagoguery*
Atiku Abubakar’s try to equate complicated financial governance with an examination paper copied by way of a “boring pupil” insults the Nigerian voters. Nigerians take into account that power financial illnesses constructed over thirty years can’t be cured by way of populist slogans or 30-day electioneering guarantees.
The opposite Atiku provides—resurrecting opaque subsidy regimes beneath the guise of “manufacturing subsidies” with out the crude volumes to again them—is the precise street to wreck that just about introduced Nigeria to its knees ahead of Would possibly 2023. It represents the previous method of doing trade: non permanent palliative bribes funded by way of unsustainable nationwide debt, main without delay to shortage, foreign money cave in, and financial chapter.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s management has selected the arduous, brave, and vital trail. By means of coupling marketplace deregulation with centered price-smoothing mechanisms, strategic reserves, fast CNG rollout, and disciplined fiscal control, the management is laying an everlasting basis for sustainable prosperity.
The Nigerian voters is a ways too refined to industry long-term nationwide financial safety for Atiku’s shallow, non permanent demagoguery.
Dr Sunday Dare
Particular Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications
October 11, 2026
