Atiku Blasts Tinubu Over Fuel Subsidy Payments
THE Peoples Democratic Party's (PDP) candidate for president in 2023, Atiku Abubakar, has criticized the Tinubu-led administration for continuing to pay the fuel subsidy.
The former vice president expressed disbelief and concerns about the government's continued support for downstream consumption in a statement released on Wednesday through X.
Atiku made his comments soon after the government announced that it expected fuel subsidy spending to reach N5.4 trillion by 2024.
Atiku emphasized that the administration is still paying subsidies covertly even after President Bola Tinubu declared on May 29, 2023, that subsidies would no longer be given.
He said: “President Bola Tinubu, at his inauguration on May 29, 2023, announced the abolishment of the subsidy on PMS, popularly known as fuel.
“Ever since, it has been a bragging right of Tinubu and officials of his administration. I had in my statement reviewing the one year of the Bola Tinubu administration urged the government to come clean on the actual position of the subsidy policy.
“If the subsidy regime had been characterised by opaqueness, what would we say of a situation where the subsidy is still being paid under the cover without Nigerians in the know?
“Like millions of Nigerians, I was shocked to learn through media reports that the government is still supporting downstream consumption.”
Atiku charged that the federal government is lying and implied that it is still funding fuel subsidies despite its outward denials.
Finally, he said: “Now we know that expenditure on fuel subsidy may reach N5.4 trillion in 2024, compared to the N3.6 trillion spent in 2023, the same year that Tinubu claimed to have abolished fuel subsidy.
“I wish to restate that Nigeria is not working, and what we have had in a little over a year is a cocktail of trial-and-error economic policies.
“Paying subsidies and lying about it is nothing to brag about. Nigerians deserve better than this deception.”
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