The All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected calls for a return of petrol subsidy, warning Nigerians against politicians promising to reverse one of the major economic reforms introduced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Director General of the APC 2027 Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, said any politician campaigning on a promise to restore the subsidy regime is misleading the public.
Yari, who spoke when members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) visited him, was responding to a pledge by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to introduce a targeted subsidy system if elected president in 2027.
Atiku, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), had argued that Nigerians were yet to see clear evidence of how funds saved from subsidy removal were being utilised.
He promised a different approach to cushion the impact of petrol price increases.
But Yari insisted that the subsidy system had become too costly and lacked transparency.
He argued that restoring it would create more problems for the country.
The former Zamfara governor said there was no provision for petrol subsidy in the 2023 budget approved by the National Assembly before Tinubu assumed office in May that year.
“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 government could sustain such a 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 raised concerns over the figures previously associated with petrol subsidy payments.
He said the country lacked accurate data on fuel consumption.
He said 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 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.
According to him, explanations given over subsidy payments remained unclear, including claims that Nigeria was subsidising fuel consumption beyond its borders.
“When at the end of the day, we push harder, they said no, ‘we are doing subsidy for West Africa,’” he added.
The latest exchange has widened the political battle over Tinubu’s economic reforms ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Opposition figures including Atiku and Peter Obi repeatedly criticised the impact of subsidy removal on Nigerians.
While opposition parties have argued that the policy increased hardship and demanded better accountability for savings from the reform, the Tinubu administration has maintained that subsidy removal was necessary to stop waste and redirect resources to development programmes.
Yari said the APC campaign would focus on defending the administration’s record and presenting evidence of its achievements 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 “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.”
He expressed confidence that Tinubu remained the best candidate to lead Nigeria beyond 2027.
According to him, the president’s policies would receive renewed support from voters.
“Bola Ahmed Tinubu is doing his best, and we believe he’s the right man for this job again,” Yari said.
