The Director-General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) 2027 Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, has dismissed calls for the restoration of petrol subsidy, describing politicians campaigning on such promises as misleading Nigerians.
Yari spoke when members of the APC National Working Committee (NWC) visited him, responding to former Vice President and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s pledge to introduce a targeted subsidy regime if elected president in 2027.
Atiku has argued that Nigerians have not been provided with sufficient information on how funds saved from petrol subsidy removal are being utilised and has promised measures to cushion the impact of higher fuel prices.
Yari, however, maintained that the former subsidy regime was financially unsustainable and lacked transparency. He argued that restoring it would place additional pressure on the nation’s finances.
The former Zamfara State governor also noted that the 2023 federal budget, approved before President Bola Tinubu assumed office, contained no provision for petrol subsidy.
“Before Asiwaju came in in 2023, there was no budget for subsidy. The National Assembly passed the budget in March, but there was no provision for subsidy in the 2023 budget,” Yari said.
He questioned how a future administration could restore subsidy without establishing a sustainable funding mechanism.
“Anybody who is deceiving Nigerians, saying ‘I’m going to bring this thing back,’ he’s lying to himself, he is lying internally, he’s lying eternally, he’s lying to Nigerians,” he said.
Yari also questioned the accuracy of fuel consumption figures used under the former subsidy regime, saying the policy involved enormous financial commitments without sufficient clarity over the actual volume of petrol consumed daily.
“This is about a N20 trillion deal for a year, going to where we don’t know. Nobody can tell you exactly how much litres we need, what are the quantities per day,” he said.
According to Yari, state governors had repeatedly challenged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to provide accurate data on national petrol consumption.
“As chairman governors forum, we challenged NNPC for four years to tell us the exact consumption,” he said.
He added that subsequent explanations surrounding subsidy payments raised further concerns, including claims that Nigeria was effectively subsidising fuel consumption in other West African countries.
Yari said the APC’s 2027 campaign would focus on presenting facts and figures about the Tinubu administration’s performance rather than attacking political opponents personally.
“We are on the right path. By God’s grace, we have the data. This is what we are going to do in our campaign – facts and figures,” he said.
He added that the campaign would highlight the administration’s achievements, ongoing policies and plans for the future without engaging in name-calling.
Yari expressed confidence that Tinubu remained the APC’s strongest candidate for the 2027 presidential election, saying the president’s policies would attract renewed support from Nigerians.
