My fellow Nigerians, Bola Tinubu has had more than three years to improve our lives. What has he given us? A bag of food that costs more each time we go to the market. A journey to work that eats up our salaries. A business that cannot keep its lights on. A farm we may be too afraid to visit. 

This is the cruel record he wants Nigerians to applaud. I have heard the anger in your voices, and I share it. Across this country, people are ready to stand with us and demand better. I will stand with you until we make life affordable again.

Bola, your government has made life unbearable and called it reform. You have demanded painful sacrifices from the people while you, your family, and friends are junketing all over the place. 

You told Nigerians to be patient as the price of petrol has pushed up the price of almost everything else. But now that an election is approaching, you have suddenly discovered their pain. 

Nigerians did not need a press conference to tell them they were suffering. They have lived it for 1,229 days since you took office. They know who made their lives difficult, and they are ready to hold you to account and mark your script.

Yesterday, your government announced a 30-day discount on petrol at NNPC stations, with priority for public transport operators. You also proposed a measure to contain petrol prices. 

Bola, when I proposed targeted support to ease fuel costs, you called me ignorant of economic policy. Your government said it could not be done. Now, in a desperate and clumsy retreat, you have shamelessly embraced the principle you mocked. You owe me an apology. But more importantly, you owe Nigerians an answer: what happens on day 31?

Wait a minute, Bola… You have borrowed the idea but missed the lesson. You heard “production subsidy” and reduced it to a 30-day gesture. Bola, you are like a dull student who copied his classmate’s answer so blindly that he copied the classmate’s name at the top of his exam paper and then demanded marks for original thinking.

You copied my production subsidy proposal, stripped away the part that makes it work, and handed Nigerians a 30-day discount. Where is the rest of the answer? Bola, you see why it is good to go to school!

My production subsidy proposal is a lasting, targeted plan. Yours is a temporary palliative dressed up as a solution. Nigerians can see the difference between a leader who has done the work and a government scrambling for an election-season headline.

Bola, your 30-day discount is a sugar rush masquerading as economic policy: a fleeting taste of relief at the pump, followed by the same brutal crash when the month ends. Families cannot plan their meals around a temporary discount. Transporters cannot set stable fares on it. Businesses cannot invest or plan for the future on it. Nigerians need lasting relief through a well-designed production subsidy that supports local refining and lowers fuel costs – not a ₦50 sweetener with an expiry date.

You and your team should be ashamed, Bola. You have been intellectually lazy. In my last State of the Nation address, on September 18, 2026, I offered to share my economic relief plan with you. Instead of accepting that offer in the national interest, you gathered your team of jesters to sell Nigerians a 30-day discount that leads nowhere.

But I am glad you have finally acknowledged the failure of your approach. It is a pity you still seem to have learned nothing from it. Your stubborn pride has cost Nigerians dearly. I offered a plan because Nigerians’ welfare matters more to me than who gets the credit. You chose to mock it, then copied it badly.

Bola, you created the hardship and now want a medal for announcing fake relief. This is Deception 101 – or, better still, yahoo-yahoo subsidy. For three and a half years, your government has driven up the cost of living. 

Now you offer a ₦50 petrol discount for 30 days and expect applause for returning a fraction of what Nigerians have lost? How can you make daily life unbearable for years and expect one month of token relief to wipe the record clean? 

Nigerians are neither foolish nor forgetful. They have lived with the consequences of your decisions, and they will judge you by them. Bola, can’t you smell the coffee I am brewing? Nigerians can smell it. They know the difference between a government with a plan and a government buying time.

Do not hide behind the word “discount.” You say public transport operators come first. Will fares fall? Who will enforce that? What about the farmer moving produce, the trader restocking a shop, the manufacturer running a generator, and the family paying for food? 

They all pay for fuel, even when they never fill a tank.

Bola, what you have announced is not relief. It is a late confession of failure on the eve of a general election. Do you think that millions of Nigerians, whom you have condemned to poverty and hardship for three and a half years, will applaud you for failing so abysmally? You have miscalculated. Nigerians are fed up with you.

Bola, the economy has collapsed under your watch. By offering a 30-day relief package, you admit you have no idea how to fix it. That is why you summoned your gang of tax collectors for help. It is a sad spectacle. You have run out of time. Nigerians need leadership with the political will, administrative experience, and sound economic judgment to make life affordable again.

You still reach for the same old excuse. You blamed past administrations for the hardship your decisions have inflicted today. You are the President. The petrol price is your problem. The collapsing purchasing power is your problem. The shops closing under the weight of fuel and power costs are your problem. Take responsibility for the country you govern.

And, Bola, the most nauseating part of your confession is that you still have not learnt. You continue to show your cluelessness, incapacity, and ineptitude in managing the economy.

My alternative is clear. Support petroleum products actually refined in Nigeria and sold to Nigerians. Cap the support. Put it in the budget. Audit it independently. Exclude imports. Show the public what it costs and what they save. Give families relief they can count on and give domestic producers a reason to produce more. That is the lesson you missed.

Fuel is only one part of the damage. We must make food affordable, restore reliable power, put people to work and let businesses grow. We must secure the roads and farms. We must remove the obstacles that hold back young Nigerians with the talent to compete anywhere in the world. A speech about growth means nothing to a family that cannot afford dinner.

But Why Are We Here Today?

We are here to inaugurate the African Democratic Congress Presidential Campaign Council. When I look around this hall, I do not just see political appointees. I see patriots. I see veterans of our democratic journey. I see the very heartbeat of our great party, the African Democratic Congress (ADC). 

I warmly welcome you to this historic occasion. On behalf of our party and this campaign, I thank you for accepting the heavy but glorious responsibility to serve. I charge you to undertake this assignment with the seriousness, the urgency, and the passion that this historic moment demands.

Needless to say, you have a great deal of work to do, and your first students are Bola and his boys. Yesterday, they walked into our classroom, copied our “production subsidy” from the board, and understood it in French, since their master now lives in France, and went out to announce a 30-day petrol discount. 

You must start them with elementary lessons. 

• Lesson one: support goes to petroleum products refined in Nigeria and sold to Nigerians. 

• Lesson two: it must be capped, budgeted, and audited. 

• Lesson three: Nigerians will still need relief after day 30. 

Bola, bring your economic advisers to class. This time, listen before you copy.

As you round off that classroom assignment, take our campaign to every market, motor park, farm, campus, and street. Listen to Nigerians. Tell them plainly what we will do and how we will pay for it. Earn their trust. Let this Council be known for the work it does, not the titles its members carry. We must be ready to govern from the first day.

Members of this esteemed Campaign Council, we must make this choice clear to Nigerians: the January 16 election is about their welfare and the future of their families. This election is a rescue mission, and every Nigerian with a PVC has a part to play. Let us urge them to dust off their PVCs and use them. In these difficult times, the ballot is more than a card; it is a powerful instrument for deciding whether life becomes affordable again.

Another four years of Bola Tinubu means another four years of hunger, hardship and national decline. We must take that message to every community and mobilize Nigerians to vote for rescue, recovery and a government that will make life affordable again.

My friends, even the best policies and strongest security plans will mean little if the people’s votes are stolen. This is bigger than any party, candidate or election: it is about whether Nigerians can trust that the votes they cast are the votes counted. Democracy is about the people’s sovereignty, and the vote belongs to them. Let me state clearly: transparency is not a crime. Accredited party agents, civil society organisations and observers have the right to independently verify results and operate situation rooms. They do not replace INEC; they help confirm that the national outcome reflects what was recorded at each polling unit. Technology must serve the people, not hide the process: election systems must be open to scrutiny and independent audit.

We demand reforms that make every polling-unit result public immediately and accessible to every Nigerian; protect the legal right of parties and observers to verify those results; and broadcast state and national collation centers live.

We also demand independent audits of election technology before and after elections, an independent commission to investigate and prosecute electoral offenses, electoral institutions whose transparent processes command public confidence, and severe penalties for vote suppression, result tampering and fraud. These are not threats to democracy; they are safeguards for the people’s mandate.

But transparent elections mean little if opposition parties are prevented from seeking the people’s votes. Let the APC-controlled Federal and State Governments hear us: there will be no “no-go” areas in Nigeria. Opposition members are citizens with the constitutional right to move freely, express their views and campaign anywhere in the country. The attempt to block an opposition candidate from campaigning in Benue must not be repeated. 

We will campaign in every state, from the creeks to the savannahs, and resist any effort to stop our candidates from reaching Nigerians. No one can partition this country or gag the opposition. We will defend these rights by every lawful means – in the courts, in the streets, and at the ballot box.

Bola, thirty days cannot erase three and a half years of hardship. Nigerians have heard your excuses and endured your failed promises. They are ready to judge your record. After this latest admission of failure, the honourable thing to do is step down. Nigerians deserve a government that will do the work and make life affordable again.

May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Thank you.

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar