ABUJA — The Presidency has dismissed former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s proposed production subsidy framework on locally refined Premium Motor Spirit (petrol), describing the policy plan as a “dangerous mathematical fantasy wrapped in political deceit” that risks plunging the national economy back into fiscal bankruptcy.
The reaction was delivered on Sunday, October 11, 2026, by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, in response to criticisms from the opposition leader alleging that the Federal Government’s temporary 30-day petrol price discount was a poorly executed copy of his own policy proposals.
Dare argued that Atiku’s proposal to maintain a capped, budgeted, and state-funded production subsidy for domestic refiners relies on unviable economic assumptions, noting that Nigeria does not possess the requisite uncommitted crude oil reserves or public financial buffers to sustain such an intervention without blowing up national debt.
The presidential spokesman maintained that Atiku’s recommended model represents a retreat to short-term palliative bribes that previously bred rampant corruption, fuel scarcity, currency depreciation, and deep fiscal deficits prior to the removal of the petrol subsidy in May 2023.
Reaffirming the administration’s stance, the Presidency emphasized that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu remains committed to market deregulation as mandated by the Petroleum Industry Act, insisting that the administration’s temporary 30-day corporate discount—financed strictly via commercial retail margins rather than treasury funds—provides targeted relief to transport operators while structural interventions like Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) adoption and domestic refining capacity mature.
