The Presidency has intensified its criticism of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar over his promise to restore Nigeria’s petrol subsidy if elected president in 2027, accusing the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate of political hypocrisy and attempting to exploit public hardship for electoral gain.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, said Atiku’s position represented a reversal of his earlier stance on fuel subsidy and warned that the former vice-president’s campaign strategy would fail to win the confidence of Nigerians.
In a statement shared on Sunday, Mr Dare argued that political leaders should be prepared to defend difficult economic reforms rather than promise policies he described as populist measures aimed at securing votes.
“True leadership requires the courage to defend difficult, foundational reforms even when the political weather is rough, rather than pandering to populist illusions for ballot-box validation,” Mr Dare said.
He further accused Atiku of hypocrisy, describing his position as an insult to Nigerians who are already grappling with global economic pressures.
“Atiku’s hypocrisy is an insult to the collective intelligence of a resilient populace navigating global economic headwinds,” he said, adding that the former vice-president’s “desperate gambit” would fail at the 2027 election.
The latest confrontation follows Atiku’s pledge to reinstate the petrol subsidy if he wins the 2027 presidential election.
Atiku has argued that although he initially supported the removal of the subsidy, circumstances have changed since the policy was implemented by President Tinubu in May 2023.
He has questioned how the savings from subsidy removal have been utilised, particularly amid rising living costs, and said his proposed intervention would be targeted, time-bound and subject to auditing rather than a return to the previous system.
The former vice-president’s position has triggered a fierce political and economic debate, with the Presidency insisting that returning to the old subsidy regime would be costly, unsustainable and vulnerable to corruption.
The Presidency had earlier accused Atiku of abandoning his previous advocacy for subsidy removal in favour of what it described as an election-driven promise.
Atiku, however, has hit back at the administration, arguing that Nigerians have borne the consequences of subsidy removal through higher petrol prices, transportation costs and declining purchasing power.
His camp has also challenged the government’s assertion that subsidy has been completely eliminated, pointing to petroleum-related costs and under-recoveries recorded in Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited accounts.
With the 2027 presidential contest beginning to take shape, the dispute over petrol subsidy is emerging as one of the major economic issues likely to dominate the campaign.
The increasingly heated exchange between the Tinubu administration and Atiku also signals a potentially more confrontational election season, as rival political camps seek to convince voters that their approach offers the best route out of Nigeria’s economic difficulties.
For now, the Presidency maintains that Nigerians should reject what it calls Atiku’s attempt to revive a failed subsidy system, while Atiku insists that economic policies must be judged by their impact on ordinary citizens rather than government statistics.
