President Bola Tinubu’s administration has dismissed former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s plan to restore petrol subsidy if elected in 2027, berating the opposition politician as inconsistent and lacking a basic understanding of fuel subsidy policy.

Bayo Onanuga, spokesperson for Mr Tinubu, in a statement on Wednesday, said Mr Abubakar “is definitely suffering from a lack of basic understanding of his newfound policy prescription.”

Highlighting the contradictory statements on subsidy restoration from Mr Abubakar and his aides, Mr Onanuga said, “Atiku confused on petrol subsidy; third U-turn in one week shows he is simply playing politics.”

“Within a week, Nigerians have heard three different explanations of what an Atiku administration would do about petrol subsidy. The confusion has now become impossible to ignore,” Mr Onanuga said.

The presidential spokesperson said the contradictions between Mr Abubakar and his aides “is a serious policy contradiction. Nigerians deserve clarity, not policy by trial and error.”

According to Mr Onanuga, more fundamentally, Mr Abubakar’s argument appears to misunderstand the dynamics of the petroleum market. Petrol does not become cheap simply because the government orders a subsidy or because competition is expected to emerge. Several factors, including international crude oil prices, exchange rates, refining costs, transportation, distribution, and other market costs, influence pump prices.

The presidential spokesperson also faulted Mr Abubakar’s argument that subsidy removal has triggered economic hardships, food inflation and plunged more Nigerians into poverty.

“There is also a troubling oversimplification in Atiku’s argument that “when fuel rises, transport rises. When transport rises, food rises. When food rises, families suffer.” Of course, energy and transportation costs affect prices. But petrol prices alone have never caused food inflation. Nigerians experienced rising food prices even during the years when petrol subsidy was in place,” Mr Onanuga said.

He added, “Agricultural productivity, insecurity, exchange rates, logistics, storage, flooding, input costs, money supply and supply constraints also matter. A serious economic programme must address these factors, as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been doing for the past three years, rather than reduce the entire cost-of-living crisis to petrol prices.”

For Mr Onanuga, Nigerians cannot afford another opaque and potentially costly subsidy regime dressed up in new language. As such, Mr Abubakar should “stop shifting positions and explain precisely what he means by “targeted subsidy”: how much will it cost, who will benefit, how will beneficiaries be identified, how will it be funded, and what objective economic conditions will determine its eventual termination?”

The presidency’s statement came in response to Mr Abubakar’s position on restoring fuel subsidy to ease the burden and economic hardships on Nigerians.

On Sunday, Mr Abubakar dismissed a statement by one of his aides that his planned subsidy restoration was temporary as unauthorised.

Mr Abubakar, who is the African Democratic Congress’s presidential candidate for the 2027 presidential election, said, “The removal of subsidy has driven more Nigerians into poverty than at any other time in the history of this country. On the question of subsidy, my position has not changed and will not change: I will restore it! A nation as blessed as ours has no business abandoning its citizens to hardship. Nigeria is rich enough to look after her own.”

The former vice-president, who contested but lost to Mr Tinubu in 2023, accused Mr Tinubu of stealing the election and the economy.

“We are competing with thieves; they have stolen the election, now they have stolen the economy, they have stolen everything,” Mr Abubakar said.