• We won’t return to opaque regime, says Atiku’s spokesman
• Yoruba Ronu, IMPI differ on ex-VP’s promise to reverse policy

Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), John Okiyi Kalu, has tasked the 19 presidential candidates jostling to replace President Bola Tinubu to marshal their arguments for or against the petroleum subsidy removal so Nigerians can rate them.

This was as Paul Ibe, spokesman to the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, defended his principal’s proposal to reintroduce fuel subsidy, saying it is fundamentally different from the opaque subsidy regime of the past.

While the Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum backed Atiku’s proposal to reintroduce a form of fuel subsidy, the Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI) said “the campaign promise is all that many foreign investors need to be convinced that doing business in the country is scary”, unpredictable and indeed an investor’s nightmare.

The Yoruba group described it as a necessary intervention to cushion the effects of the country’s prevailing economic hardship.

Kalu, erstwhile Commissioner for Trade and Industry in Abia State, noted that while Atiku’s offer to return the subsidy sounds like taking Nigeria’s economy back to Golgotha, it was necessary to explore all sides of the argument to preserve the nation’s political economy.

According to him, it was refreshing that presidential candidates have started focusing on issues that border the ordinary Nigerian, stressing that the country’s electorate should be properly enlightened on where each candidate stands on the two crucial concerns that affect their daily lives, particularly security and economy.

Recall that the petrol subsidy removal, which President Tinubu implemented in 2023, became a subject of ongoing debate after Atiku announced his desire to reverse the subsidy if elected as President in 2027. The Annual General Conference of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) holding in Port Harcourt also elevated the subject to a panel discussion.

Presidential candidates of ADC, Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and African Action Congress (AAC) participated in the panel session.

Reacting to the development in a message to The Guardian, the former commissioner said that although his views align with the NDC candidate’s position that reinstituting the subsidy regime could cause more harm, his stance centres on what can be done to address the cost-of-living crisis Nigerians are facing.

FOR Ibe, who spoke in a television interview yesterday, Atiku’s proposal was designed to locate the subsidy within crude production and refining, rather than maintain the system under which the government paid the difference between the cost of imported petroleum products and their selling price.

He said the proposal was an alternative policy response to Tinubu’s fuel pricing regime, which imposed severe economic hardship on Nigerians without delivering corresponding benefits.

“Atiku presented an alternative policy solution to what we have today because the present subsidy policy is not working. The feedback from Nigerians has clearly shown that people are desirous of an alternative,” Ibe said.

He explained that under Atiku’s proposed economic recovery programme, subsidy would be “located in the barrel”, with crude allocated to refineries at an incentivised cost to encourage domestic production of petrol, diesel and other petroleum products at cheaper rates.

However, he admitted that the policy would affect government revenue, businesses, petroleum sector stakeholders and consumers, making proper modelling critical to its implementation.

YORUBA Ronu Leadership Forum, in a statement signed by its President, Akin Malaolu, asserted that Atiku’s willingness to publicly outline his proposal represented an example of “open-book” leadership that would allow Nigerians to assess the merits and implications of his economic policies.

Malaolu said the proposal had become necessary because the removal of subsidy imposed severe economic pressure on Nigerians, arguing that the savings from the policy had not translated into commensurate improvements in infrastructure, education and other critical sectors.

According to him, although economists and international financial institutions had argued that the subsidy regime constituted a major drain on government resources, the benefits expected from its removal had not been sufficiently evident to Nigerians.

He said: “The money saved from the removal of the subsidy is not traceable to improvements in education or infrastructural development. Corruption and indiscipline have simply eroded the gains, leaving the masses crushed by the cost of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).”

IMPI handed down the warning in a policy statement released yesterday in Abuja by its Chairman, Dr Omoniyi Akinsiju, captioned ‘Atiku’s Fuel Subsidy Restoration Campaign  Promise Fails Litmus Test of Practicability and Sustainability’.

Akinsiju said Atiku’s proposed Economic Recovery Plan (AERP) outlined a model structured around production rather than consumption, shifting subsidies from importation to production and transferring incentives directly from middlemen traders to local Nigerian refineries.

He explained further that the former vice president’s model required eligible public and private local refineries to receive domestic crude allocations at a discounted price, on the condition that refinery operators pass the exact savings on to consumers.

The model, he said, would force commercial entities such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) and private refineries into complex, politically mandated pricing formulas, thereby undermining the noble ideals and provisions of the existing Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) of 2021.

“Atiku’s proposal also sends signals to global markets that Nigeria lacks regulatory predictability. This policy shift would scare international capital and freeze modern Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), with repercussions for funding critical legacy infrastructure projects and a damning effect on production and productivity”, he said.