Why Nigeria Must Not Return To Fuel Subsidy – Information Minister

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has cautioned against renewed calls for the restoration of petrol subsidy, saying such a move would reverse the economic gains recorded since the Federal Government embarked on major reforms in 2023.

Idris said Nigeria must resist the temptation to return to a subsidy regime that had placed enormous pressure on public finances, created market distortions and diverted resources that could have been invested in critical sectors of the economy.

He said the scale of the problem inherited by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was significant, noting that Nigeria spent about $10 billion on fuel subsidies in 2022 amid declining oil production and weak government revenues.

According to him, the World Bank has also warned that the subsidy was consuming resources that could otherwise have been channelled into education, healthcare, infrastructure and social protection.

“Nigeria cannot build tomorrow’s economy by returning to yesterday’s unsustainable subsidy regime. We have moved beyond that model.

“We do not downplay or deny the challenges associated with subsidy removal and other major reforms. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his administration are daily working

and succeeding at translating these sacrifices into improved living standards, stronger public services and greater economic opportunities for the Nigerian people,” he said.

Speaking against the backdrop of the Federal Government’s recent presentation of the “Nigeria’s Reform Scorecard: The Benefits, Costs and Harms Prevented”, the minister said the reforms had created significant fiscal space for all three tiers of government.

He noted that the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed that subsidy savings had mobilised N15.8 trillion in resources for the Federation between June 2023 and December 2025.

Idris, however, stressed the need for the figures to be properly understood, saying that the N15.8 trillion was not sitting in a government account as a separate pool of money labelled subsidy savings.

“Rather, it represents resources released within the Federation’s wider fiscal system and made available across the three tiers of government,” he stated.

He also said the additional resources available to state and local governments have strengthened their ability to meet salary and pension obligations, while also supporting investments in infrastructure and essential services, including primary healthcare, basic education and roads.

At the federal level, he said the broader fiscal space created by the reforms had supported major investments and obligations that would have been considerably more difficult to sustain under the old subsidy regime.

Idris added that the reform scorecard recorded approximately N6.47 trillion in additional expenditure on strategic infrastructure, covering major investments in transport, housing, agriculture, security and other critical projects.

He listed major national corridors such as the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway and Trans-Sahara Superhighway among the projects benefiting from increased fiscal capacity.

He further noted that the administration has also committed more than N400 billion to major social investment initiatives, including N223.8 billion for the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), N150 billion for the MOFI Real Estate Investment Fund (MREIF) and N50 billion for the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CREDICORP).

Adding , he said the reforms had contributed to renewed domestic and foreign investor confidence, which he said had helped the Nigerian stock market become the world’s best performing market in 2026, while external reserves had risen to their highest level in almost 20 years.

He also noted that oil production had increased to exceed Nigeria’s OPEC quota for the first time in years.

“The additional fiscal space has supported wage adjustments, minimum-wage obligations and pensions, while expanding the capacity for investments in education, healthcare, agriculture, electricity, security and other critical areas of national development,” he said.

The minister also pointed to developments in the petroleum sector, particularly the expansion of domestic refining capacity, saying policy consistency was crucial to consolidating the gains.

“Nigeria is entering a new phase in its petroleum sector, with marked expansion in domestic refining capacity. Reversing policy now will undermine this progress and introduce fresh uncertainty for investors at precisely the time Nigeria should be consolidating domestic refining and strengthening energy security,” he noted.

However, he acknowledged that the reforms had imposed significant hardship on Nigerians and had not resolved all the country’s economic challenges, but said reversing them would not provide a sustainable solution.

“We are not claiming that the reforms have solved all of Nigeria’s economic challenges; there is indeed still much work to be done to translate improved fiscal capacity into better services, jobs, infrastructure and living standards.

“But the proper response to the hardship associated with reform is not to dismantle the reform; it is to accelerate the benefits, which remains what the Tinubu administration is resolutely focused on,” he added.

The minister also said the Organised Private Sector and the wider economic community had cautioned against reversing the reforms, recognising the importance of fiscal sustainability, policy stability and a competitive downstream petroleum sector to investment, job creation and economic growth.

“Nigeria cannot build tomorrow’s economy by returning to yesterday’s unsustainable subsidy regime. We have moved beyond that model,” Idris said.