By: Ganiyu Olayinka
Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has said the appeal by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) for federal intervention to curb fuel price increases exposes the weakness of the Tinubu administration’s position on petrol subsidy removal.
However, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu pushed back against calls to reverse the subsidy removal, describing such campaigns as populist politics destined to fail. He argued that any candidate promising Nigerians a return of fuel subsidies was building their campaign on empty promises that would ultimately mislead voters.
Meanwhile, civic-tech organisation BudgIT has noted that despite a sharp rise in government revenue, Nigerians are yet to feel the full benefits of the Federal Government’s economic reforms, as climbing food and fuel costs continue to erode household incomes.
In a statement released by his media team, Atiku said IPMAN’s call for intervention carried particular weight because it came from those directly involved in buying, distributing and selling petroleum products daily placing them in a strong position to understand, beyond official narratives, how expensive petrol is affecting Nigerian businesses and families.
The intervention follows an appeal by IPMAN President Abubakar Maigandi, who urged Tinubu to negotiate with the Dangote Refinery to bring down fuel prices. His comments came against the backdrop of a fresh hike in pump prices, which now range between N1,310 and N1,350 per litre.
Atiku threw his support behind IPMAN’s call for the government to work with domestic refiners to lower petrol prices.
“IPMAN has come late to this conversation, but it has come to the right conclusion. The association is now saying that the government cannot simply stand aside while petrol prices punish Nigerians, and that deliberate subsidy around domestic refining can help bring prices down. That is precisely the policy principle President Tinubu and his gang of jesters spent weeks trying to ridicule,” he said.
He added: “Tinubu’s argument has always depended on deliberately confusing the import-subsidy bazaar and a transparent, production-linked intervention that strengthens Nigerian refining and delivers measurable relief to Nigerian consumers.”
Atiku indicated that, if elected, he would reintroduce fuel subsidies. The Tinubu administration, for its part, has maintained that removing the subsidy was a necessary step to stabilise the economy.
Speaking at the 7th Freedom Online Newspaper Lecture, themed “2027 Elections, Economy, Security and Nigeria’s Future,” Sanwo-Olu argued that the subsidy regime originally introduced to offset shortfalls in domestic oil supply caused by inefficiencies at state-owned refineries was never meant to be a permanent fixture of economic policy.
The lecture, chaired by former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, was held at the Sheraton Lagos Hotel in Ikeja, with former Ogun State governor and Senator representing Ogun East, Gbenga Daniel, serving as Special Guest of Honour. In his address, Sanwo-Olu examined the Federal Government’s ongoing economic reforms, security efforts and electoral changes, weighing both their achievements and future prospects.
“The oil subsidy was not removed because anybody enjoyed removing it. It was removed because it had become a hole in the national purse through which the money for roads, schools and hospitals was draining away. The intervention was never reaching the ordinary motorist it was supposed to help. In the build-up to the 2023 elections, every major candidate promised to remove it. Only one of them was in a position to do it, and he did it on his first day in office,” Sanwo-Olu said.
He continued: “I will not stand here and tell you that oil subsidy removal has been painless. It has not. Lagosians, particularly, have felt it at the pump, at the market, and in the price of a bag of rice. Any governor who tells you otherwise has not been listening to his own people. But the measure of a reform is not whether it hurts; it is whether it heals, and the evidence that this one is healing is now arriving, quarter by quarter.”
He pointed to gains at the state level, noting that monthly allocations to states and local governments have more than doubled in naira terms since the subsidy was removed.
BudgIT’s assessment came in response to the Federal Government’s claim that Nigeria remains on track to become a $1 trillion economy by 2030, a projection based on the latest GDP growth figures. The organisation noted that state governments collectively earned N15.5 trillion in revenue in 2025 which is more than three times the N4.8 trillion recorded in 2022.
Even so, BudgIT cautioned that this revenue growth has not automatically translated into stronger fiscal capacity, improved public services, or better living standards for ordinary Nigerians. The organisation highlighted that food inflation stood at 20.31 per cent in July, while petrol prices had climbed to around N1,345 per litre in some parts of the country.
It said the rise in fuel costs continues to push up transport fares, food prices and production costs, squeezing households’ disposable income even as they try to meet basic needs. According to BudgIT, the reforms will only produce meaningful benefits once incomes can cover a greater share of household needs, public services ease the private costs Nigerians currently bear, and economic shocks stop pushing more citizens into poverty.