Fayemi Likens Atiku’s Subsidy Comeback Plan To APC’s 2023 Muslim-Muslim Ticket Gamble

Former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, has described former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s proposal to restore petrol subsidy as a political strategy aimed at taking advantage of the hardship being experienced by Nigerians following the removal of the subsidy.

Fayemi, who spoke during an interview on Arise TV on Tuesday, likened Atiku’s proposal to the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket adopted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2023 general election.

“My take is that Atiku’s proposal on subsidy is the political equivalent of our own Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023. It’s a political strategy. It’s not an economic construct,” Fayemi said.

Atiku, who has indicated his intention to contest the 2027 presidential election, had said he would restore petrol subsidy if elected president, criticising the Federal Government over what he described as lack of accountability concerning funds saved from removal.

He argued that the savings should have been channelled into measures aimed at reducing poverty and financing development.

President Bola Tinubu criticised the proposal, describing it as evidence of “serious ignorance” of governance and the economy.

Atiku later clarified that what he was proposing was not a return to the former subsidy regime, but a targeted, capped and budgeted intervention that would be independently audited and designed to support domestic production.

But Fayemi said the proposal could prove politically attractive to Nigerians struggling with the effects of subsidy removal.

“But understandably, it is a political strategy that will sell with those who are hard done by the impact of fuel subsidy removal,” he said.

Fayemi said he remained a supporter of subsidy removal, noting that he had spent years advocating the policy, but faulted the manner in which it was implemented by the Tinubu administration.

“What President Tinubu inherited, in fairness to him, was the work that had already been completed by that administration. The only challenge it had was the way it was done,” Fayemi said.[Buhari]

He explained that the Nigerian Governors’ Forum had previously worked with the Federal Government and the World Bank on a safety-net strategy designed to cushion the impact on vulnerable Nigerians.

He argued that many Nigerians who have borne the brunt were less interested in technical arguments and more concerned about basic needs.

“Frankly, they [poor Nigerians] don’t want to go into the minutiae of subsidy removal and no subsidy removal. They just want to live reasonably well, eke out a living, have one or two meals a day, be able to send their kids to school, not be taken in by sickness or anything that might create further problems for them,” he said.

“So I think the way we saw Muslim-Muslim ticket as a political strategy in order to maximise the vote for our party in 2023, I believe that’s what the opposition candidate is also trying to take advantage of,” Fayemi added.