The Presidency has said that the Nigerians are far too sophisticated to trade long-term national economic security for Atiku Abubakar’s shallow politics. FG recently had its say via a press statement issued by Dr. Sunday Dare, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communication.
Describing Atiku’s press conference as a seminal example of an election-laced demagoguery, the Presidency stated that the former VP sounded completely disconnected from global realities and consumed by an unbridled lust for power.
Concluding that Nigerians will not be deceived, Dare added that President Tinubu’s administration is right to choose the hard, courageous, and necessary path to success with its policy decisions.
His words, “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration has chosen the hard, courageous, and necessary path.
By coupling market deregulation with targeted price-smoothing mechanisms, strategic reserves, rapid CNG rollout, and disciplined fiscal management, the administration is laying a permanent foundation for sustainable prosperity.
The Nigerian electorate is far too sophisticated to trade long-term national economic security for Atiku’s shallow, short-term demagoguery.
In close to 10 other countries, leaders are employing various means to provide relief for citizens.
But in Nigeria, when a President offers the same, a misguided presidential candidate chooses to dance on the sufferings of Nigerians and exploit it for political gains.
For decades, political opportunism in Nigeria has relied on a single, toxic formula: exploit temporary transitional discomfort, appeal to emotional cynicism, and promise mathematically impossible quick fixes to a sophisticated electorate.
Calling a calibrated, multi-layered economic stabilisation strategy a ‘panic-driven gimmick’ reveals more than partisan bitterness; it exposes a profound, structural ignorance of global energy dynamics, fiscal mechanics, and the plain arithmetic of modern Nigeria.
Atiku’s soundbite-driven critique relies on emotional bait, trying to buy future votes with cheap sentimental appeals while ignoring the structural rot that President Tinubu’s administration has systematically dismantled over the last three years.
Atiku’s attempt to position himself as the ‘smart student’ teaching economic policy falls apart under even light scrutiny.
First, it is sheer absurdity that a man who graduated from a school of hygiene dares to call a first-class accounting graduate a dull student.
Second, Atiku’s proposal for a blanket ‘production subsidy’ is not an alternative economic model—it is a dangerous mathematical fantasy wrapped in political deceit.
Unhinged, Atiku Abubakar arrogantly claims that President Tinubu copied his economic homework while stripping away the core element that makes it work: the ‘production subsidy.’
But let us examine the actual numbers that Atiku deliberately conceals from the Nigerian public.
As Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance Taiwo Oyedele clearly articulated on Channels Television, Nigeria currently produces about 1.8 million barrels of crude oil per day, bpd, for a population of over 200 million people.
Simplistic populists like Atiku deliberately deceive citizens by pretending that the Federal Government directly owns all 1.8 million barrels and can distribute or discount them at will.
Under complex Joint Ventures, JVs, and Production Sharing Contracts, PSCs, signed over decades, production costs, royalties, and profit-oil sharing ratios severely reduce the equity crude available to the state.
After accounting for these statutory and contractual obligations, Nigeria has fewer than 700,000 barrels per day of unencumbered ‘free crude’ to give away.
Mega-refineries like the Dangote Petroleum Refinery require immense daily feedstock that far exceeds what the state can freely provide without breaching existing international supply contracts or bankrupting national revenues.
Consequently, Dangote and other domestic refiners must supplement local supplies by importing crude from international markets.
To propose a blanket ‘targeted production subsidy’ on crude without the physical, unencumbered volume to back it up is pure economic illiteracy.
It invites the very opacity, fraudulent round-tripping, and fiscal haemorrhage that crippled Nigeria for decades under the old subsidy regime.
Compare Nigeria’s numbers with those of other global oil producers. The United States produces over 10 million barrels per day for 330 million people, yet sells petroleum strictly at market-determined prices.
Qatar holds some of the world’s largest gas reserves for under 500,000 citizens, yet had to cut energy subsidies significantly to maintain long-term fiscal health.
As Minister Oyedele noted, comparing local crude allocation to local agricultural produce like garri or cassava—a misleading analogy popularised by media commentary—is a fundamental misrepresentation of global commodity markets and contractual energy economics.
For Atiku to suggest that Nigeria can fund unlimited production subsidies without bankrupting the state is either financially reckless or fundamentally dishonest.
Atiku’s attempt to frame NNPC Retail’s decision to forgo its profit margin as a ‘return to the fuel subsidy’ is a deliberate mischaracterisation designed to mislead the public and incite public dissatisfaction.
First, NNPC had offered the discount to celebrate the 66th Independence anniversary. It merely offered to extend the discount by another 30 days.
The administration’s intervention is a market-smoothing price modulation framework, not a return to unbudgeted federal spending.
When NNPC Retail agrees to sell fuel at landing cost for 30 days during an unprecedented global crude price spike, it is not writing cheques to opaque import cartels.
It is leveraging its corporate balance sheet to absorb short-term global volatility, backed directly by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Furthermore, the Federal Government’s negotiation of an interim N1,350 per litre ceiling on ex-gantry costs is a structural shock absorber, not price control.
Under this framework, refiners and importers absorb short-term cost spikes above the ceiling and recover those costs later when global crude prices cool or local exchange rates adjust. N1,400 today and N1,400 tomorrow provides far greater economic stability than N1,500 today and N1,300 tomorrow.”
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