BY FRONTLINE REPORTERS

Presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has rejected former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s proposal to restore fuel subsidy if elected president in 2027, insisting that subsidy removal remains necessary for Nigeria’s economic survival.

Obi, however, faulted the Federal Government for failing to properly manage and invest the resources saved from the policy, alleging that the proceeds had been mismanaged and stolen.

The former Anambra State governor spoke on Monday at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where he weighed in on the growing debate over the future of fuel subsidy ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

Atiku, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), who had supported subsidy removal during the 2023 presidential election, has now promised to restore the policy if elected in 2027.

But Obi maintained that the removal of subsidy was the right policy, arguing that the failure lay not in the decision itself but in the way government handled the savings generated from it.

“I subscribe and I maintain that we need to remove subsidy. Mismanagement of the proceeds should not be the reason for not removing it,” Obi said.

He argued that the government should have simultaneously introduced measures to cushion the impact of subsidy removal on ordinary Nigerians and channel the savings into productive sectors capable of stimulating economic growth and improving living standards.

“What we should have done is that when we removed it, we should have given the people alternative usage for the subsidy,” he said.

Obi alleged that rather than translating the savings into tangible benefits for Nigerians, the resources recovered from subsidy removal had been subjected to mismanagement and theft.

“What we have today is that that removal and the attendant resources being recovered is also being mismanaged and stolen,” he said.

The former governor said his position on subsidy removal was not new, stressing that he had anticipated the need for a structured and transparent approach to the policy in his manifesto ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

“Go to my manifesto, I said it before, I said I will do it in an organised manner and whatever we recover would be invested appropriately,” Obi said.

President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of petrol subsidy on May 29, 2023, shortly after assuming office. The decision triggered a sharp increase in petrol prices and intensified concerns over the rising cost of living across the country.

While the Federal Government has consistently defended the policy as necessary to ease fiscal pressure and free public resources for development, critics have continued to question its implementation and demand greater transparency in the management of the funds saved from subsidy removal.

With the 2027 presidential contest already taking shape, the divergent positions of Obi and Atiku have thrust fuel subsidy back to the centre of the political and economic debate, with both opposition figures offering contrasting prescriptions for addressing Nigeria’s deepening cost-of-living crisis.