Atiku Slams Tinubu: Ex-VP Labels Fuel Subsidy Removal 'Economic Fraud'

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has vehemently criticized President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies, particularly his approach to petroleum subsidy removal, describing it as the “insolent sermon of a failed economic experimenter.” Atiku, through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, accused Tinubu of mistaking Nigerians' capacity to endure suffering for evidence that his policies are working, calling it “economic arson” rather than reform.

Atiku highlighted the severe impact of Tinubu's policies, which he claims detonated simultaneous fuel-price, exchange-rate, and cost-of-living shocks across an already fragile economy. This has led to millions of Nigerians becoming poorer, with their purchasing power collapsing. He argued that while government revenues, specifically FAAC allocations, have seemingly ballooned, hungry Nigerians cannot benefit from these figures, and businesses cannot power factories with presidential speeches. He asserted that a government growing richer while its citizens grow poorer is not reforming an economy but rather extracting from its people.

The former Vice President dismissed Tinubu's argument that increased FAAC allocations to states represent an achievement of subsidy removal. Atiku labeled this argument “economically shallow” and “an admission of developmental failure,” stating that one does not build a federation by impoverishing citizens to send bigger cheques to governors. He warned that this approach creates an “Abuja dependency economy,” discouraging states from developing competitive economies, attracting investment, or broadening their productive tax bases, as they can simply wait for ever-growing monthly allocations from the centre. This, he concluded, is “fiscal sedation and rascality,” not fiscal federalism.

A central point of Atiku’s critique revolves around the alleged hypocrisy in Tinubu's declaration that “subsidy is gone.” Despite this pronouncement, Atiku pointed to NNPC’s audited accounts, which reportedly contain significant figures for “energy-security costs” and “petroleum under-recoveries.” He cited a figure of approximately ₦17.5 trillion, which includes about ₦7.13 trillion classified as Energy Security and ₦8.67 trillion in under-recoveries. Separately, he noted that NNPC’s 2023 accounts recorded approximately ₦4.84 trillion as energy-security expenses and related shortfalls, with ₦7.13 trillion recorded under energy-security expenses in its 2024 audited financial statements. Atiku questioned what exactly Tinubu removed if “under-recoveries are alive” and “opacity has survived,” stating that “Nigerians got the pain; government kept the bill.”

Atiku further elaborated on what he termed “economic apartheid,” where “brutally savage capitalism” is applied to poor Nigerian families while “compassionate capitalism” is extended to major petroleum investors. He cited instances where qualifying petroleum developments can receive production tax credits, potentially amounting to as much as $11.50 per barrel under Tinubu’s Deep Offshore Oil and Gas Projects Incentives framework. Atiku questioned the rationale behind government intervention being deemed “good economics” for corporate interests through tax credits and fiscal concessions, yet “economic ignorance” when similar relief is proposed for suffering Nigerians.

In contrast to Tinubu’s approach, Atiku emphasized that his proposed petroleum-sector intervention is not a resurrection of the “corrupt, open-ended subsidy bazaar.” Instead, he advocates for a “targeted, capped, budgeted, time-bound and independently audited production-support mechanism” tied to domestic production and protected against arbitrage. This plan, part of the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan, seeks to de-risk survival for Nigerian households, just as the government de-risks investment for corporations, rejecting Tinubu's “false choice” between the corrupt old subsidy regime and the current “cruel shock therapy.”

Finally, Atiku challenged the Presidency to demonstrate similar enthusiasm in explaining outstanding fiscal questions, including the approximately ₦30 trillion in Federation Account revenues, deductions, savings, and transfers he has demanded be reconciled, as well as the ₦12.8 trillion Service-Wide Vote in the 2026 budget. He concluded by asserting that “economic reform is not measured by how fat government accounts become while citizens grow poorer,” and that the “real ignorance is believing suffering is economic policy.” He warned against sentencing Nigerians to “another four years of the bitter experiment” of “Tinubunomics.”