Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the African Democratic Congress presidential candidate have criticised the Federal Government’s Compressed Natural Gas conversion programme, describing the conversion of about 120,000 vehicles in more than three years as inadequate to address the country’s transportation and cost-of-living crises.
Atiku, in a statement issued on Friday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the figure represented less than one per cent of the estimated 14 million vehicles on Nigerian roads.
He argued that the scale of the conversion showed that the CNG initiative had failed to provide meaningful relief to Nigerians following the removal of the petrol subsidy.
“If Tinubu’s grand strategy for cushioning the consequences of his reckless and poorly thought-out subsidy removal is CNG conversion, then the admission that only about 120,000 vehicles have been converted in more than three years is not an achievement. It is an advertisement of policy failure.
“Against widely cited estimates of roughly 14 million vehicles on Nigerian roads, 120,000 conversions amount to less than one per cent. That is the government’s own number. That is Tinubu marking his own examination script,” Atiku said.
His criticism came shortly after President Bola Tinubu announced plans by the Federal Government and state governors to work towards reducing public transport fares, with the administration linking the expected reduction to lower operating costs from CNG-powered and electric vehicles.
Tinubu said cheaper fuel should translate into cheaper transportation for Nigerians amid continuing pressure from high living costs.
However, Atiku described the announcement as belated, accusing the administration of failing to provide adequate relief since the removal of the petrol subsidy in May 2023.
“For more than three years, Nigerians begged this government for relief. Tinubu removed subsidy without a credible cushioning framework, watched transport costs explode, watched food prices follow, watched businesses suffocate under crushing energy costs, and repeatedly told Nigerians that their suffering was the unavoidable price of reform,” he said.
Meanwhile, the ADC also accused Tinubu of going into “panic mode” over the rising cost of living, following the Federal Government’s renewed push to expand CNG-powered transportation as part of measures to reduce transport fares across the country.
The opposition party described the move as a political gimmick that came “three years too late”, arguing that the administration could have deployed CNG buses and other interventions much earlier to cushion Nigerians from the impact of the removal of the petrol subsidy.
In a statement issued on Friday by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party said the administration’s latest intervention was not driven by concern for Nigerians but by the growing political challenge posed by the opposition ahead of the 2027 general elections.
According to the party, the sudden attention being given to transportation costs follows Atiku’s decision to place targeted production subsidies and the rising cost of living at the centre of the national political debate.
“They left the people to suffer for three years, and now that the election approaches, they suddenly realise that they could make transportation cheaper,” the ADC said.
The party questioned why the government did not make CNG-powered transportation a major component of its economic response when the petrol subsidy was removed and transport fares began to rise sharply.
“If CNG buses can provide cheaper transportation today, why were they not rapidly deployed when Nigerians first began to pay the heavy price for their wrong-headed subsidy removal policy?” the party asked.
The ADC said the timing of the government’s intervention was particularly significant, coming shortly after Atiku’s proposals on targeted subsidies and the cost-of-living crisis had generated renewed national debate.
The party asked, “Why did it take Atiku’s subsidy plan for this government to suddenly start running helter-skelter and to realise the need to bring down the cost of transportation?”
It argued that the government’s latest measures should not be viewed in isolation from the emerging political contest ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
The party said the administration was only beginning to respond to economic hardship because its political interests were now under pressure.
“One thing is clear; President Tinubu is not suddenly responding to the suffering of Nigerians. He is responding to ADC and Atiku; he is responding to the impending reality of the 2027 election,” the party said.
It accused the administration of failing to address what it described as persistent challenges in security, job creation and the cost of living, arguing that the latest transport intervention could not erase the hardship Nigerians had experienced over the past three years.
“A president who truly cares would not wait for three years and an approaching election before treating the cost of transportation as an emergency,” the party added.
