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African Democratic Congress (ADC) Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has described the proposed 30-day fuel discount at Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s (NNPCL) stations as a panic-driven publicity stunt.
Atiku, in a statement by Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Phrank Shaibu, dismissed the proposed fuel discount as “a desperate, temporary gesture that cannot repair the damage caused by the crushing cost of fuel.”
The Federal Government had on Thursday unveiled plans to offer fuel at a discount at NNPCL’s stations for 30 days, with priority to transporters nationwide, noting that it was not a subsidy.
Nonetheless, Atiku stated that the proposed 30-day discount “was not an economic plan but a political bandage on a wound the government had helped create,” noting that the proposal by the government “was reckless, disgraceful and scandalous.”
According to him, “the same government had watched Nigerians endure excruciating hardship without offering meaningful relief. Now, as the election draws closer, President Tinubu is dangling a temporary discount at the very epicentre of the cost-of-living crisis that has tormented households and businesses.”
” Atiku totally rejects this calendar-scheduled, election-laced subsidy package. Nigerians are not fools to be offered a month of discounted fuel after years of punishing prices and then expected to forget the hardship when the discount expires. This is shameless and heartless.”
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“What happens on Day 31? Nigerians wake up to the same brutal prices, the same punishing transport fares and the same rising cost of food. The government cannot manufacture relief for one month and expect Nigerians to applaud while the hardship remains.”
The former Vice President noted that the offer is limited to NNPC stations, while the government has yet to state how much motorists will save per litre or guarantee that any savings for transport operators will be passed on to passengers through lower fares.
He added the present administration’s “sudden reversal on this sensitive social welfare issue was itself an admission of guilt over the hardship Nigerians have endured. It also exposed the weakness of the government’s repeated claims that meaningful relief was impossible.”
“This volte-face proves that the production-support proposal I have advanced is workable, achievable and not complicated. The Tinubu government and its spin doctors have tried to make it sound impossible, yet they are now reaching for a temporary subsidy-style intervention because the pain has become impossible to ignore.”
The ADC candidate noted that Nigerians need lasting relief, not a countdown to the return of hardship. Tinubu’s government cannot spend years telling Nigerians to endure, then offer 30 days of relief and call it a solution.
He restated his proposal for capped and budgeted production support tied to fuel refined in Nigeria, with safeguards to ensure that the benefit reaches consumers and supports local refining.
