By Anjorin Oludolapo Charles

Debt itself is not the problem; what a government does with borrowed money is. Nigeria borrowed to finance the Kainji Dam project in the 1960s not merely to finance consumption but to expand electricity generation and build an economic base for future income. That is the logic of productive borrowing: borrow, build, increase productivity, expand the tax base, and generate the resources to service the debt.

A country can borrow itself into prosperity if it borrows to build the future, or into poverty if it borrows merely to finance the present. The central question should not be “why are you borrowing,” but “what are Nigerians getting for it?” Had government transformed the fiscal opportunity of subsidy reform into productive investment, the argument for sacrifice would have had a tangible foundation. Instead, Nigerians have endured the pain while watching the debt burden grow. This is how nations slide into debt traps, not through one spectacular act of recklessness, but through the cumulative mismanagement of opportunities.

Education sharpens this further. Nigeria removed PMS subsidy, absorbed a dramatic rise in living costs and kept borrowing, while education stayed inadequately funded, and the N20.4 trillion figure above shows the unaffordability excuse is hard to sustain when the country can mobilise such sums. The real question is not whether Nigeria has resources but whether it has chosen the right priorities.

Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe understood that roads, schools and skilled people were not competing priorities but complementary foundations of a productive economy. No refinery can transform an economy permanently without the engineers and skilled workers capable of sustaining the industries around it.

This is also why Atiku’s proposal should not be judged merely on whether it lowers petrol prices. A functioning domestic refining industry can create employment across engineering, logistics, banking and insurance, cut the forex needed for imports, and deepen Nigeria’s manufacturing base, becoming more than a refinery, an economic ecosystem, the way telecoms deregulation did not merely put phones in Nigerian hands but created fintech and millions of new livelihoods around it. Transformative policy is judged not by what it produces immediately but by the ecosystem it makes possible, and that is the thinking Nigeria needs from its next president: not how much revenue a sector generates, but what it can become.

Once accepted, the argument extends beyond crude oil. Nigeria should not export cocoa beans, lithium and agricultural commodities while others capture the value through processing, then import the finished products back at a multiple of the original value. Countries that industrialised successfully deliberately cultivated productive capacity rather than opening their markets and hoping it would appear; Britain’s protection of its own textile industry illustrates the principle, not a model to copy uncritically.

Serious industrial policy should encourage value addition, so that what leaves Nigeria increasingly leaves as a finished product. None of this is possible without human capital: Nigeria cannot industrialise while its brightest are pushed abroad by unemployment and limited opportunity, and every skilled professional who leaves represents capacity transferred elsewhere. The economy Nigeria builds must give its people a reason to stay, and to return.

This is why the subsidy debate is ultimately larger than petrol: whether government sees revenue as something to distribute or as capital to build the future, whether Nigeria keeps exporting raw materials and importing finished ones, and whether the sacrifices Nigerians have made since 2023 will produce something worthy of them.

Atiku’s proposition deserves scrutiny, not dismissal. It must be subjected to transparent costing, independent auditing and safeguards against rent-seeking; any refinery receiving preferential crude must show that the benefit reaches consumers rather than becoming another channel for politically connected interests to capture public resources. But dismissing it as simply “bringing back subsidy” would be intellectually lazy. It is fundamentally different from the old import-dependent model, seeking to intervene in domestic production, use Nigeria’s crude advantage to support local refining, and make petroleum products more affordable at home. The APC should resist the temptation to answer a serious economic proposition with slogans.

Nigerians have already paid for this reform, through transport fares, food prices, shrinking purchasing power and higher costs of doing business. The government may explain the economics of subsidy removal as often as it wishes, but there comes a point when theory meets the kitchen table, and that is where politics becomes unforgiving.

By 2027, Nigerians will ask the question governments cannot indefinitely avoid: where did the journey take us? If the answer is stronger domestic refining, better infrastructure, better schools, more jobs and a productive industrial base, Nigerians may conclude the pain produced something. If the answer is more debt, higher living costs and another round of explanations about who else should be held responsible, the political consequences will be difficult to contain.

There is an old saying that when the drumbeat changes, the dancer must change his steps. Nigeria’s drumbeat has changed; the question is whether its leaders have changed their thinking. The country does not merely need a president who can remove subsidies. It needs one who can turn the resources released by difficult reforms into productive assets and economic opportunity. That, ultimately, is the real test of 2027, and it will not be answered by governors behind a podium or the cleverness of political propaganda.

It will be answered by the Nigerian who can afford transport again, the young person who finds a job, the entrepreneur who keeps a factory running, and the family that can buy food without sacrificing everything else.

Atiku has put a different proposition on the table. The APC should not be afraid of it. It should be afraid of Nigerians deciding the sacrifice was never worth the destination.

Charles is a political strategist and political commentator.