Former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, has described Atiku Abubakar’s proposal to restore petrol subsidy if elected president in 2027 as a political strategy rather than an economic policy.
Fayemi made the comment during an interview with Arise News on Monday, drawing a comparison between Atiku’s subsidy proposal and the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket adopted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 election.
“My take is that Atiku’s proposal on subsidy is the political equivalent of our own Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023. It’s a political strategy. It’s not an economic construct,” he said.
In 2023, President Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate, selected Kashim Shettima, a fellow Muslim from northern Nigeria, as his running mate. The decision sparked controversy, with critics arguing that the ticket did not adequately reflect the country’s religious diversity.
Atiku, a former vice-president and presidential candidate, had last month said he would restore petrol subsidy if elected president in 2027.
He also accused the federal government of failing to account for the funds saved following the removal of the subsidy, arguing that the money should have been used to reduce poverty and finance development.
Tinubu, however, criticised Atiku’s proposal, describing it as evidence of “serious ignorance” of governance and the economy.
Atiku subsequently rejected the criticism, explaining that his proposal was not a return to the former subsidy regime but a targeted, capped, budgeted and independently audited intervention designed to support domestic production.
‘SUBSIDY PROPOSAL WILL RESONATE WITH NIGERIANS’
Fayemi said Atiku’s proposal could appeal to Nigerians struggling with the economic consequences of subsidy removal.
“But understandably, it is a political strategy that will sell with those who are hard done by the impact of fuel subsidy removal,” he said.
The former governor reiterated his support for the removal of petrol subsidy, saying he had advocated an end to the policy for years.
According to him, the Tinubu administration inherited groundwork for subsidy removal from the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, although he criticised the manner in which the policy was eventually implemented.
Fayemi identified the failure to put adequate measures in place to cushion vulnerable Nigerians from the impact of the policy as its major weakness.
He said the Nigerian Governors’ Forum had worked with the federal government and the World Bank to develop a safety-net strategy for Nigerians who would be most affected.
“What President Tinubu inherited, in fairness to him, was the work that had already been completed by that [Buhari] administration. The only challenge it had was the way it was done,” he said.
Fayemi said Atiku was taking advantage of the continued hardship faced by vulnerable Nigerians, who, he noted, were more concerned about improving their daily lives than the technical arguments surrounding subsidy removal.
“Frankly, they [poor Nigerians] don’t want to go into the minutiae of subsidy removal and no subsidy removal. They just want to live reasonably well, eke out a living, have one or two meals a day, be able to send their kids to school, not be taken in by sickness or anything that might create further problems for them,” he said.
“So I think the way we saw Muslim-Muslim ticket as a political strategy in order to maximise the vote for our party in 2023, I believe that’s what the opposition candidate is also trying to take advantage of.”