August 28, 2026
AGAIN, the matter of fuel subsidy has dominated national discourse in the last few days, with President Bola Tinubu, former vice-president and ADC presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, NDC presidential candidate Mr Peter Obi and a host of others have had not a little to say about the issue.
The matter was reignited when Alhaji Atiku Abubakar said that if he should be elected, he would return subsidy on fuel energy. Expectedly, presidency officials descended on him, and in the exchanges that followed, harsh, near-uncivil words were used. The exchanges went as far as dredging up the matter of over $16 billion spent on the power sector during the Obasanjo administration. It just shows how deeply the issue of subsidy is affecting lives.
Beyond the brickbats however, what is clear is that nobody has interrogated Atiku Abubakar’s subsidy return plan, at least empirically. It is quite possible that the former vice-president is on a sympathy run, a vote-catching gambit to sway the voting populace to his side as January 2027 approaches. On the flip side, he may be altruistic; moved by the real and apparent suffering of Nigerians as runaway inflation makes nonsense of any amount held by anybody. The position taken by the president and his officials in defending subsidy removal is what it has always been — a rehash of previously spewed rhetoric about how the economy would have collapsed if it had not been done, and how the economy is on a skyward rebound, despite the fact that the people are simply suffering. Impressive GDP figures and positive ratings by Fitch and other agencies mean nothing if the average Nigerian still struggles to eat barely twice daily. Perhaps the easiest way to describe the situation is through the words of one Austin Okai, who, in a Facebook post said, inter alia, that “If your salary is not up to at least 300k in Abuja, the difference between you and Almajiri is just the plate.” The post, which stirred huge reaction online speaks only of Abuja residents. How many Nigerians earn N300k? And if you don’t earn that much, you’re just what he said — an almajiri. Truth is, many Nigerians are becoming almajirai; begging for urgent N2k from one friend to another. But I digress.
