ADC Defends Atiku’s Subsidy Plan, Says Nigerians Deserve Cheaper Fuel
• Okogwu canvasses BVN-linked payments, digital tracking
•Olawepo-Hashim: N605 petrol only first step to affordable energy
Chuks Okocha and Sunday Aborisade in Abuja
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has defended its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar’s proposal to reintroduce a form of petrol subsidy if elected president in 2027, insisting that the policy would be fundamentally different from the opaque subsidy regime of the past.
The party said yesterday that its proposal was aimed at reducing the burden of high fuel prices on Nigerians while supporting domestic refineries, reducing petroleum imports and strengthening the country’s energy security.
The ADC’s position followed criticism from the presidency of Atiku’s proposal to bring petrol prices down to about N600 per litre through a controlled domestic-refining subsidy.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party argued that the debate should not be reduced to the N19.1 trillion cost estimate attributed to the proposed intervention, stressing that Nigerians were already paying heavily for high fuel prices through increased transport fares, food prices, production costs and other living expenses.
The party said Atiku’s proposal was not a return to the old subsidy regime but a controlled production incentive for Nigerian refineries, backed by a fiscal ceiling and mechanisms to track crude from refinery intake to finished petroleum products.
“What the Presidency is attacking therefore is the old subsidy regime that Atiku is seeking to replace, not Atiku’s plan,” the ADC said.
The party also challenged the presidency’s use of what it described as a hypothetical $40-per-barrel subsidy figure in criticising the proposal. “We are at a loss as to how the presidency conjured up this phantom figure. But we do not agree with it,” Abdullahi said.
The ADC further questioned the rationale for providing fiscal incentives to oil producers while rejecting an intervention designed to lower the cost of petroleum products for Nigerians and strengthen domestic refining.
It pointed to offshore oil production incentives of up to $11.50 per barrel and asked why a controlled crude-input incentive for domestic refineries should be dismissed.
“If Nigeria can provide a production-linked fiscal incentive of up to $11.50 per barrel to stimulate offshore oil production, why is a carefully controlled crude-input incentive for domestic refineries dismissed as economic madness when its objective is to make fuel cheaper for Nigerians and build domestic refining capacity?” Abdullahi asked.
According to the party, the N19.1 trillion calculation also failed to account for possible foreign exchange savings and wider economic gains that could result from increased domestic refining, including reduced petroleum imports, lower production costs and refined-product exports.
It added that the economic cost of maintaining high fuel prices should also be factored into the debate. “Doing nothing is not free. It is ultimately more expensive,” the party declared.
According to the party, the real debate is what Nigeria should subsidise, why it should do so and who should benefit, insisting that its proposal was a capped, audited and traceable production-support regime aimed at making fuel cheaper while strengthening domestic refining.
Okogwu Backs BVN-linked Subsidy Payments
The ADC’s position was reinforced by one of its National Leaders, Dr Chike Okogwu, who argued that Nigeria needed a new, transparent and technology-driven fuel price stabilisation system rather than a return to the subsidy architecture of the past.
Okogwu, a former member of the federal government’s Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) Board, stated this in a policy intervention titled: “Subsidy Reimagined: Why Atiku Abubakar Is Right to Put the Nigerian People Before Economic Orthodoxy.”
He said the debate over subsidy should move beyond the argument that the policy was inherently corrupt or unsustainable, maintaining that the major problem was the way it had previously been designed, administered, monitored and abused.
“The problem was never the idea of cushioning the Nigerian people from an essential commodity’s international price shock, but the manner in which the system was designed, administered, monitored and abused,” he said.
Okogwu, who represented Persons With Disabilities on the SURE-P Board between 2012 and 2015, said Atiku, if elected, should not simply announce that “subsidy is back” but establish a new consumer protection and fuel-price stabilisation system with verifiable controls.
He also rejected the characterisation of SURE-P as simply a corruption machine, arguing that the federal government’s component of the programme supported major infrastructure and social intervention projects.
He cited the Second Niger Bridge, Loko-Oweto Bridge and railway rehabilitation programmes as examples of projects supported by the programme.
“Was SURE-P perfect? No. Was there room for improvement? Absolutely. Were there abuses associated with the broader subsidy architecture in the states and LGAs? Yes. But was the Federal Government SURE-P structure simply a gigantic corruption machine? I reject that characterisation unequivocally,” he said.
Okogwu maintained that the federal SURE-P structure he experienced was “overwhelmingly transparent”, claiming that it was “over 97 per cent clean” based on his experience.
He argued that the lessons from the programme should be used to create a more accountable subsidy architecture rather than abandon consumer protection.
The ADC leader proposed the use of Nigeria’s digital financial and identity infrastructure to ensure that any future subsidy payments were traceable and beneficiaries identifiable.
He specifically advocated the integration, subject to privacy and data-protection safeguards, of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) with relevant government identity and payment systems.
“Every legitimate beneficiary should be digitally identifiable,” he said.
According to him, a modern system should establish who receives the benefit, how much is received, why it is received, where the beneficiary is located, which account receives the payment and how frequently the benefit is received.
For petroleum products, Okogwu proposed digital tracking of subsidised litres from refineries to depots, trucks and filling stations, supported by GPS-enabled petroleum logistics and electronic inventory and sales records.
“Every litre should have a digital trail. Every truck should have a GPS trail. Every depot should have an electronic inventory trail. Every filling station should have a verified sales trail. Every naira should have an audit trail,” he said.
He also proposed a public dashboard that would enable Nigerians to monitor monthly subsidy expenditure, volumes of subsidised products, domestic refinery participation, average pump-price benefits, verified beneficiaries and fraud prevention.
Okogwu’s intervention came amid continuing debate over the impact of petrol subsidy removal and whether savings from the policy had translated into tangible improvements in citizens’ welfare.
He said Nigerians had a right to demand accountability for the savings generated since subsidy removal, noting that the federal government had indicated that about N15.8 trillion was mobilised from subsidy removal between June 2023 and December 2025.
According to him, approximately N5.4 trillion was attributed to the federal government, while about N10.4 trillion was distributed through the Federation Account to states and local governments.
“If the Nigerian people are supposedly benefiting from the savings, why are so many Nigerians feeling poorer?” he queried.
He said the answer should not be contained only in official expenditure figures but should also be reflected in the daily economic realities of citizens.
Okogwu argued that the increase in petrol prices from about N91 per litre more than a decade ago to over N1,300 in some parts of the country had triggered higher costs across the economy.
“Fuel moves food. Fuel moves people. Fuel moves medicine. Fuel moves building materials. Fuel powers generators. Fuel influences electricity costs. Fuel affects water production. Fuel affects farming. Fuel affects manufacturing,” he said.
He added that the cost-of-living crisis had been particularly severe for persons with disabilities, the elderly, low-income families, farmers, students and other vulnerable groups.
On domestic refining, Okogwu said a redesigned subsidy framework should prioritise Nigerian refineries and reduce the country’s exposure to international supply-chain costs.
He proposed a model in which Nigerian crude would be processed by Nigerian refineries to produce fuel for Nigerian consumers rather than exporting crude for refining abroad and subsequently importing petroleum products.
He also called for the establishment of a Domestic Energy Price Stabilisation Mechanism, funded partly from excess petroleum revenues during periods of high international crude prices, to cushion domestic consumers when global oil prices rise sharply.
The mechanism, he said, should include a publicly defined subsidy formula, transparent benchmark pricing, domestic-refinery priority, independent audits, parliamentary and civil-society oversight, as well as automatic sunset and review clauses.
On Atiku’s proposal to reopen Nigeria’s land borders, Okogwu said the policy should be implemented through controlled and secure trade arrangements that would make legitimate commerce more attractive than smuggling.
…Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim Insists on N300 Petrol Price
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the Accord Party, Dr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has said his proposed N605 per litre petrol price was only the starting point of a broader energy policy that could eventually bring the price down to between N200 and N300 per litre.
Olawepo-Hashim, who has been campaigning on an energy security first agenda, said Nigeria could achieve cheaper petrol without returning to the opaque subsidy regime that existed before the 2023 reform.
The energy executive noted in a statement issued yesterday that the fundamental question Nigeria should answer is not simply how much petrol sells internationally, but how much it actually costs Nigeria to produce crude, refine it and deliver the finished product to Nigerian consumers.
Olawepo-Hashim used a domestic crude production of $45 per barrel in explaining the proposed starting price. This, he said, includes NNPC and standard industry upper limit cost of $30 plus $15 margin.
According to him, a standard barrel of crude gives 159 litres. At $57 divided by 159, petrol, he argued, will be approximately $0.3585 per litre.
At an illustrative exchange rate of N1,400 to the dollar, he maintained that this translates to about N502 per litre. Other costs include refining costs of $5 per barrel, distribution, transportation and insurance $7 per barrels.
He explained that given that a barrel of crude accounts for 159 litres of a basket of products, unit price to a total of $57 divided by 159 liters gives $0.34 (N501). He, therefore, proposed an Energy Stabilisation Tax of approximately N104 per litre, producing a figure close to the N605 target.
He called for an independent forensic audit of the petroleum value-chain, covering crude exploration and production, contracting, procurement, security, transportation, refining, storage, insurance, pipelines and distribution.
He insisted the exercise should establish the actual cost of producing and delivering petroleum products rather than relying automatically on international benchmark prices.
“Show Nigerians the books. Publish the production cost. Publish refinery cost. Publish transportation. Publish insurance. Publish every margin. Let the data speak,” he insisted.
The Accord Party presidential candidate questioned whether Nigerians should automatically bear every international opportunity cost attached to crude produced within Nigeria, arguing that the country should distinguish between the cost of producing energy and the international market value of the resource.
He described the conventional justification of subsidy removal as “accounting magic,” arguing that selling a domestically-produced product below an international opportunity price does not, by itself, establish that the government is subsidising the product.
The Accord Party presidential candidate noted that Nigeria’s growing refining capacity provides an opportunity to fundamentally change the country’s petroleum economics.
He proposed greater support for large scale and modular refineries, regional refining facilities, petrochemical plants, storage infrastructure and crude evacuation systems.
According to him, domestic refining should do more than eliminate imports. It should lower the cost of energy, retain value inside Nigeria and create a platform for industrialisation, he pointed out.
“We must stop exporting cheap energy and importing expensive products. Nigeria must refine more, manufacture more and export more value-added energy products,” he said.
