The All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected calls for the return of petrol subsidy, warning Nigerians against politicians promising to reverse one of the major economic reforms introduced by President Bola Tinubu.
Director-General of the APC 2027 Presidential Campaign Council, Abdulaziz Yari, said any politician campaigning on a promise to restore the subsidy regime was misleading Nigerians.
Yari, a former governor of Zamfara State, spoke when members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) visited him.
He was responding to a proposal by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), to introduce a targeted subsidy system if elected president in 2027.
Atiku has argued that Nigerians have yet to see clear evidence of how funds saved from subsidy removal are being utilised and has proposed an alternative approach to cushion the impact of rising petrol prices.
Yari, however, insisted that the subsidy regime had become too expensive and lacked transparency, arguing that its restoration would create additional problems for the country.
He said there was no provision for petrol subsidy in the 2023 budget approved by the National Assembly before Tinubu assumed office in May 2023.
“Before Asiwaju came in in 2023, there was no budget for subsidy. National Assembly passed the budget in March, but there was no provision for subsidy in 2023 budget,” Yari said.
He questioned how any incoming administration could sustain the policy without a clear financial framework.
“Anybody who is deceiving Nigerians, saying I’m going to bring this thing back, he’s lying to himself, he is lying internally, he’s lying eternally, he’s lying to Nigerians,” he said.
The APC campaign chief also questioned the figures previously associated with petrol subsidy payments, saying the country lacked reliable data on fuel consumption.
According to him, the subsidy regime involved huge financial commitments without sufficient clarity on the actual volume of petrol consumed daily.
“This is about N20 trillion deal for a year, going to where we don’t know. Nobody can tell you exactly how much litres we need, what are the quantities per day,” he said.
Yari, who previously served as chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, said governors had repeatedly demanded accurate fuel consumption figures from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC).
“As chairman governors forum, we challenged NNPC for four years to tell us the exact consumption,” he said.
He added that explanations surrounding subsidy payments remained unclear, including claims that Nigeria was subsidising petrol consumption in other West African countries.
“When at the end of the day, we push harder, they said no, ‘we are doing subsidy for West Africa,’” he said.
The disagreement has further intensified the political debate over Tinubu’s economic reforms ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Opposition figures, including Atiku and Peter Obi, have repeatedly criticised the impact of subsidy removal on Nigerians, arguing that the policy has worsened economic hardship.
The opposition has also demanded greater accountability over the savings from subsidy removal, while the Tinubu administration maintains that ending the subsidy was necessary to eliminate waste and redirect resources towards development programmes.
Yari said the APC’s 2027 campaign would focus on defending the administration’s record with facts and figures rather than engaging in personal attacks against opponents.
“We are on the right path. By God’s grace, we have the data. This is what we are going to do in our campaign – facts and figures,” he said.
He added that the campaign would focus on the government’s achievements, ongoing programmes and future plans.
“What we have done, what we achieved, and what we intend to do in the future. We don’t call any names. Names are not important to us, but rather what we’re going to do for Nigerians and what we’ve been doing for the past three and a half years,” Yari said.
He expressed confidence that Tinubu remained the best candidate to lead the country beyond 2027.
“Bola Ahmed Tinubu is doing his best, and we believe he’s the right man for this job again,” he said.