ADC to Yari: Tell Tinubu to Account for N15.8tn Subsidy Windfall

· Atiku: Tinubu’s reforms conveyor belt to poverty

· **Insists Tinubu’s three-week European vacation troubling **

Chuks Okocha and Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

African Democratic Congress (ADC) yesterday challenged the director-general of President Bola Tinubu’s re-election campaign, Senator Abdul’aziz Yari, to explain what Nigerians had gained from the trillions of naira generated from petrol subsidy removal before dismissing the promises of relief by Atiku Abubakar as a lie.

ADC, in a statement signed by its spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, said Yari’s comments were particularly significant because he was not speaking merely as an APC senator, but as the man charged with persuading Nigerians to give Tinubu another four years.

Since the removal of petrol subsidy shortly after Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements have risen sharply, driven by savings from subsidy payments, exchange rate adjustments, and higher naira-denominated oil revenues.

The increased inflows have significantly boosted the resources available to the federal, state, and local governments, with states recording particularly large increases in monthly allocations compared with the pre-subsidy removal era.

However, the sharp improvement in government revenues has coincided with one of the most difficult cost-of-living periods for Nigerian households in recent years. Petrol prices rose dramatically following deregulation, driving significant increases in transportation, food, and other essential costs.

The depreciation of the naira and the removal of energy subsidies combined to fuel inflation, eroding household purchasing power and intensifying pressure on workers and businesses.

The development has consequently generated growing public debate over whether the increased revenues accruing to governments have translated into improved infrastructure, social services, and welfare for citizens.

Critics have repeatedly questioned the utilisation of the additional FAAC resources, particularly by state governments, amid persistent concerns over poor roads, inadequate healthcare facilities, unemployment, and the rising cost of living.

The controversy has also been heightened by borrowing by several states, despite the significant increase in their monthly allocations from the federation account.

While governments have argued that inherited infrastructure deficits, debt obligations, wage commitments, and rising costs have constrained their ability to immediately translate higher revenues into improved living standards, opposition parties have increasingly accused the Tinubu administration of failing to demonstrate tangible benefits from the sacrifices imposed by its economic reforms.

ADC’s latest intervention comes against the backdrop of an intensifying political debate ahead of the 2027 general election, with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) seeking to defend the economic reforms as necessary measures to stabilise the economy, while opposition parties argue that Nigerians have yet to see commensurate improvements in their welfare.

The debate has recently shifted increasingly towards the question of whether the savings and additional revenues generated by subsidy removal and foreign exchange reforms have been transparently deployed, as well as what concrete measures the federal government intends to implement to reduce transportation costs, food prices, and broader inflationary pressures before the next election.

“If the message of the president’s re-election campaign is that Nigerians must accept today’s hardship as permanent and anyone promising relief is a liar, then Nigerians must be seriously concerned,” ADC said in the statement released yesterday.

Separately, the presidential candidate of ADC, Atiku Abubakar, described the continued rise in petrol prices, despite lower crude prices, as further evidence that Tinubu’s economic experiment had become a conveyor belt transferring pain from government policy directly into Nigerian homes.

In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the former vice president also condemned Tinubu’s three-week vacation in Europe, beginning August 30, as announced by the presidency, as troubling. Atiku said the vacation coming at a time many Nigerian families and businesses were struggling showed insensitivity to the plight of citizens.

Quoting figures attributed to Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, ADC stated that petrol subsidy removal and foreign-exchange reforms generated about N15.8 trillion in additional resources for the federation between June 2023 and December 2025. Of this, ADC explained that about N5.4 trillion went to the federal government, N5.4 trillion to states, and N3.9 trillion to local governments.

States alone, reportedly, received N47.25 trillion in FAAC allocations between 2023 and 2025, rising from N10.09 trillion in 2023 to N15.26 trillion in 2024, and N21.90 trillion in 2025. Monthly FAAC distributions, according to ADC, have since crossed N2 trillion, compared with less than N1 trillion around the period before subsidy removal.

Yet, while government revenues soared, Nigerians became poorer, the opposition party stated.

Besides, ADC pointed out that petrol moved from about N185 per litre in May 2023 to N1,300+ in many places by August 2025, while food inflation crossed 40 per cent at some points during the period. Transport costs surged, and the promised Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) mass-transit alternative had yet to reach Nigerians at the scale required, the party said.

ADC stated, “The contradiction is impossible to ignore. The government is counting trillions while Nigerian families are counting the meals they can afford. If governments are receiving substantially more money, why are Nigerians getting substantially less food to eat?

“Before asking Nigerians for four more years, Senator Yari and the APC must answer one question: after N15.8 trillion in additional resources, record FAAC allocations and three years of unprecedented sacrifice, are Nigerians better off?”

The party said the situation was even more troubling because increased revenues appeared to have led only to increased government borrowing. About 20 states, it stressed, reportedly borrowed N458 billion in 2025 despite the surge in FAAC receipts.

ADC stated, “After N47.25 trillion to states in three years, Nigerians have a right to ask: where are the results? If states received an additional N5.4 trillion from the reforms, let the government publish the projects. Show Nigerians the schools, hospitals, roads, and mass-transit systems that their sacrifice paid for.”

ADC said it found it “disgraceful” that the only thing the APC government haf to show for trillions of naira was payment of workers’ salaries that could no longer guarantee food on the table.

It stated, “Meanwhile, budgets remain unimplemented, local contractors remain unpaid, major public roads remain terrible, and Nigeria becomes one of the most dangerous places to live in, and home to the highest number of poor people on earth.

“The big lie is in the government telling Nigerians that its reforms are working while driving the country towards certain destruction.”

ADC challenged Tinubu’s campaign to explain why it took the APC government more than three years and a few months to elections to realise the need to make plans for reducing the cost of transportation.

It said, in the statement, “If Senator Yari says subsidy can never return, then he must tell Nigerians what the president’s campaign is offering instead. What is the plan to dramatically reduce petrol prices and bring down food and transportation costs before 2027? ‘Endure’ is not an economic policy.”

ADC explained that it was not advocating a return to the corruption and opacity associated with the old subsidy regime. The party explained that its alternative would prioritise domestic refining with targeted and transparent support aimed at lowering the price of fuel and reducing the cost of living for Nigerians.

The party said, “The 2027 election will not be about who shouted ‘liar’ the loudest. It will be about who can put food on Nigerians’ tables, create jobs, provide security, and reduce the cost of living.

“Nigerians have sacrificed enough. They need a break.”

Meanwhile, Atiku described the continued rise in petrol prices, despite lower crude oil prices, as further evidence that the Tinubu administration’s economic experiment had become a conveyor belt conveying pain from government policy directly into Nigerian homes.

Atiku said, in the statement by Shaibu, that the response from Tinubu’s aides had become predictable whenever Nigerians complained about the cost of living.

He stressed that the presidency had continued to produce frightening arithmetic to justify citizens’ persistent suffering rather than explaining what its reforms had actually delivered.

The statement said, “The latest trick is the claim that Atiku’s targeted intervention will cost N22 trillion. That figure is not Atiku’s policy. It is Villa arithmetic built on Villa assumptions. They selected their own pump price, subsidy rate and financing model, multiplied their assumptions and then presented the result as Atiku’s bill. That is not economic analysis. It is arithmetic vandalism.

“Atiku has never proposed an unlimited resurrection of the import-subsidy racket. His proposal is targeted, capped, appropriated, transparent and independently audited, tied to domestic production and measurable consumer benefit. Its precise parameters must reflect actual production and the fiscal space.”

Atiku said the irony was particularly striking because while the presidency was quick to manufacture a N22 trillion bill for an opposition policy, it had yet to provide the detailed public reconciliation he had demanded for nearly N30 trillion in federation revenues, deductions, savings, and transfers identified from published FAAC figures.

Atiku recalled that he had earlier challenged the administration to reconcile those figures transparently, after his analysis put the cumulative amount requiring explanation at nearly N30 trillion by July 2026.

The statement added, “If Aso Rock has suddenly discovered a calculator, Nigerians would like it applied to the Federation Account too. Before inventing trillions for Atiku, account clearly for the trillions collected, deducted, saved and transferred under Tinubu.

“The question remains painfully simple: with government revenues substantially higher, why are ordinary Nigerians still being crushed by food, transportation and energy costs? Where is the prosperity that supposedly followed subsidy removal?”

Atiku said Nigerians were already paying very real bills while presidential aides debated imaginary ones, recalling a Vanguard report that MRS increased petrol from N1,205 to N1,310 per litre, with other marketers selling between N1,315 and above N1,400, even as crude prices declined from about $92 to $87.31 per barrel.

The former vice president said in the statement, “At N1,500 per litre, 20 litres would cost N30,000. That is not an abstract figure on an economist’s spreadsheet. That is money disappearing from a family’s feeding allowance.

“The tomato farmer in Plateau pays more to move produce. The truck driver adds his fuel cost. The Mile 12 trader adds transportation. The neighbourhood market woman adds hers. By the time a mother buys tomatoes for stew, she is paying for every kilometre Tinubu made more expensive.

“The same mathematics follows bread from the bakery, garri from the farm, a child into a school bus and a worker into a commercial vehicle. The barber running a generator and the vulcaniser keeping his shop open feel it too. Petrol enters the Nigerian pocket long before the Nigerian enters a filling station.”

Atiku said the timing of Tinubu’s three-week European vacation made the contrast even more troubling, stressing that the presidency confirmed that Tinubu departed Abuja on August 30 for a three-week vacation in Europe.

Atiku stated, “The president is constitutionally entitled to annual leave. But leadership also has optics, timing and responsibility. At the very moment petrol prices are surging, families are struggling to feed, businesses are battling higher energy costs and insecurity remains a daily fear, Nigerians watch their president leave for three weeks in Europe.

“Millions of Nigerians can no longer afford ordinary journeys within their own country. A worker thinks twice before travelling home because transport fare competes with food money.

“A trader postpones visiting relatives because moving from Lagos to Benin now threatens the household budget. Yet the man presiding over this cost-of-living crisis can still leave Abuja for London while Nigerians remain trapped at home by the economy he created.

“That is the painful symbolism of Tinubu’s Nigeria: the president can afford to leave; millions of Nigerians can barely afford to move. The issue is not that a President takes leave. The issue is that a country in distress increasingly sees a government insulated from the consequences of its own policies. Nigerians sacrifice while the government travels, spends and lectures them about patience.”

Atiku said that was why his alternative began not with government revenue but with household purchasing power.

He said, “The argument is not between reform and irresponsibility. It is between a reform that transfers every economic shock to the citizens and an alternative that asks how Nigeria’s resources can reduce production costs, transportation costs and the cost of living without restoring the corruption of the past.

“You cannot make transportation expensive, make food expensive, make energy expensive and then distribute rice as evidence that your economic policy works. You cannot break a man’s leg and demand applause because you brought him a crutch.”

Atiku stated, “The N22 trillion scarecrow will not reduce one bus fare or put one extra measure of garri in a family’s bowl. Nigerians do not live inside the Presidency’s calculator. They live in markets, buses, farms, workshops and kitchens where Tinubu’s policies confront them every day.

“A country in distress cannot be governed like a tourist itinerary. Tinubu made Nigeria expensive. Atiku will make Nigeria affordable again.”