Atiku Says His Subsidy Would Go To Refineries, Not To Petrol
Abuja · Saturday 12 September 2026
Atiku Abubakar has said his proposed subsidy would reduce the cost of crude supplied to qualifying Nigerian refineries rather than force anyone to sell below cost, and that it would not apply to petrol refined abroad. He said Dangote Refinery's warning about price controls supports rather than undermines his position, and accused President Tinubu of distorting it.
The distinction being argued over
| Import subsidy | Production subsidy | |
|---|---|---|
| What is cheapened | The landed fuel | The crude feedstock |
| Who can claim it | Anyone importing | Refiners inside Nigeria |
| Failure mode | Smuggling and phantom cargoes | Capture by whoever qualifies |
Both are subsidies. They fail in different directions.
Why the wording matters now
Nigeria has spent three years living with the consequences of removing the old subsidy, and the finance ministry has put the amount mobilised for the federation at 15.8 trillion naira between June 2023 and December 2025. Any proposal to reintroduce support is going to be heard, correctly, as a proposal to give some of that back.
The old subsidy did not fail because subsidies are impossible. It failed because nobody could say how much fuel actually entered the country.
The question neither side has answered
How a production subsidy is audited. The old regime collapsed under volume claims that could not be verified. A feedstock subsidy needs the same thing measured at a different point: how much crude went in, how much product came out, and who checked. Until a candidate publishes that mechanism, this is a debate about labels.
Reporting: Vanguard, The Guardian Nigeria, Politics Nigeria and Peoples Gazette.
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