Subsidy: I Forced APC To Debate What They Wanted To Avoid, Atiku Replies Fayemi

Former Vice President of Nigeria and Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, yesterday said his proposal to bring back fuel subsidy has forced the President Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress government to debate the after-effects of its removal on the citizenry.

Atiku said the government has been forced to confront the unprecedented hardship it has caused and what its plan is to make fuel, food and transportation affordable again.

The former vice president said this while replying to former Ekiti State Governor and Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who likened Atiku’s proposal on subsidy to a political strategy and not an economic construct.

Fayemi, during an interview on Arise Television’s _Prime Time_ on Monday, said: “My take on that is that Atiku’s proposal of subsidy is politically equivalent to our own Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023. It’s a political strategy. It’s not an economic construct.”

Reacting, Atiku said Fayemi’s attempt to dismiss his subsidy proposal as mere political strategy is intellectually lazy and economically unserious.

Speaking exclusively to LEADERSHIP through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the ADC presidential candidate said, “A policy designed to reduce the cost of energy, transportation, food production and doing business cannot be compared with the political calculation behind a Muslim-Muslim ticket. One was an electoral arrangement; the other is an economic intervention aimed at putting money back into the pockets of Nigerians.

“If Governor Fayemi believes Atiku’s proposal is not an ‘economic construct,’ he should engage the economics. Tell Nigerians why targeted support for domestic refining, with clear limits, transparency and guaranteed consumer benefit, cannot reduce production and transportation costs. Calling it politics is not an economic argument.

“The uncomfortable truth is that Atiku has forced the APC establishment to debate the question they would rather avoid: after removing subsidy and inflicting unprecedented hardship on Nigerians, what exactly is their plan to make fuel, food and transportation affordable again?”

He said the APC government has since resorted to labels because it has no answer to the questions it has created on account of its subsidy removal policy.

“Atiku’s position is straightforward: Nigeria must produce more at home, refine more at home and ensure that government policy translates into lower costs for ordinary Nigerians. If Fayemi wants a debate, let it be a debate on economics, not political analogies. Nigerians cannot eat analogies.

They need relief,” he said.