Nigerians Are Buying Fuel At American Prices With Poverty Wages – Atiku

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has faulted the administration of President Bola Tinubu over the current pump price of petrol. He recently had his say via a press statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, and Nigerians have been reacting.

Accusing Tinubu’s government of presiding over an organised system of grand larceny against the Nigerian people, built around opaque Federation Account FAAC deductions, Atiku questioned the president’s management of oil revenues, parallel funding arrangements and allegations of off-book transactions.

He added that it is unconscionable for a government that has extracted unprecedented sacrifice from citizens in the name of subsidy removal to keep raising the cost of survival.

His words, “With crude oil around $102.52 per barrel, Nigerians are paying as much as ₦1,470 per litre. In 2008, when crude oil reached about $147 per barrel, petrol sold at ₦65 per litre under the Yar’Adua administration.

The difference is that government then understood that economic policy must ultimately protect the welfare of citizens.

Petrol at ₦1,470 per litre is not merely a figure at the filling station. It enters the price of transportation, food, school runs, farming, manufacturing and virtually everything Nigerians buy. Every increase at the pump travels directly into the household budget.

After all the pain imposed on Nigerians, they have a right to ask: where are the subsidy savings and where is the money?

Nigerians deserve accounts they can interrogate, not accounting labels designed to discourage questions.

These allegations are too serious to be answered with press statements and political insults. Every barrel can be measured, every cargo identified and every legitimate payment traced. If everything is in order, publish the records and allow independent forensic auditors to reconcile them. If the allegations are false, the records will clear the government.

At about $4.31 per gallon, U.S. petrol is roughly $1.14 per litre. Yet while the U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, Nigeria’s minimum wage is only ₦70,000 per month.

Tinubu has brought Nigerians close to American fuel prices while leaving them with Nigerian poverty wages. That is the true cost of his subsidy-removal policy.

After all the oil, all the revenue, all the deductions and all the hardship, petrol is now ₦1,470 per litre. The question Tinubu must answer is simple: where are the savings, where are the revenues, and who is taking Nigeria’s money?”