Fuel Subsidy Return? Yari Fires Back: ‘Anyone Promising It Is Lying

The Director-General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) 2027 Presidential Campaign Council, Abdulaziz Yari, has dismissed promises to restore the fuel subsidy, describing such pledges as deceptive and unrealistic.

Yari made the comment on Saturday when members of the APC National Working Committee (NWC) paid him a courtesy visit.

He was reacting to the pledge by the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to reinstate petrol subsidy if elected president in 2027.

Atiku had earlier said he would introduce a targeted subsidy, arguing that the Federal Government had failed to properly account for the savings generated from the removal of the subsidy regime.

However, Yari, a former Governor of Zamfara State, argued that the 2023 budget approved by the National Assembly before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office did not contain any allocation for petrol subsidy.

The APC campaign council chief also questioned the huge sums previously spent on fuel subsidy and raised concerns over the lack of accurate data on Nigeria’s daily petrol consumption.

Yari recalled that, during his tenure as chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, state governors repeatedly challenged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) to provide verifiable figures on the country’s actual fuel consumption.

According to him, the absence of reliable consumption figures made it difficult to establish how much was genuinely being spent on subsidy.

Yari said anyone promising Nigerians that the subsidy would be restored was misleading them.

He stated, “Before Asiwaju came in in 2023, there was no budget for subsidy.

“National Assembly passed the budget in March, but there was no provision for subsidy in 2023 budget. How is it going to run? Definitely, whoever is there, the first thing he is going to do, he will hands up.

“And 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.”

Yari further claimed that about N20 trillion could be involved in annual subsidy expenditure, while questioning where the funds ultimately went.

He said, “This is about N20 trillion deal for a year, going to where we don’t know. Nobody can tell you, no one can tell you exactly how much litres we need, what are the quantities per day.

“As chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, we challenged NNPC for four years to tell us the exact consumption.

“They will propagate the numbers and say it, and we are paying the numbers. When at the end of the day, we push harder, they said no, ‘we are doing subsidy for West Africa.’”

Yari maintained that President Tinubu remains the best candidate to lead the country, insisting that the APC’s 2027 campaign would focus on the administration’s achievements, policies and future plans rather than attacking political opponents.

He said the party would campaign using facts and figures, highlighting what the Tinubu administration had achieved over the past three and a half years and what it intended to accomplish in the future.

Yari stated, “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.

“What we have done, what we achieved, and what we intend to do in the future. We don’t call any names. Names are not important to us, but rather what we’re going to do for Nigerians and what we’ve been doing for the past three and a half years.

“Bola Ahmed Tinubu is doing his best, and we believe he’s the right man for this job again.”