As socialists, we hold one principle as non-negotiable:
The first and most important responsibility of government is to secure the lives, livelihoods, and welfare of its citizens in every ramification.
Let’s be clear about the record.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and Peter Obi all campaigned in 2023 on one promise: Remove Fuel Subsidy.
They called it “unsustainable” and “a scam.”
That subsidy, however flawed, was the one direct “dividend of democracy” that touched the poor, keeping transport and food costs slightly within reach.
So when they all promised to remove it, Nigerians were essentially being told: the last relief you had will be taken away, no matter who wins.
We’ve seen this movie before. In January 2012, Goodluck Jonathan announced partial subsidy removal. Petrol jumped from ₦65 to ₦141.
Bola Tinubu, Fela Durotoye, Nasir El-Rufai, and the entire APC opposition bloc led the “Occupy Nigeria” protests. They shut down Lagos, Abuja, and Kano. They called Jonathan “wicked” and “anti-people.”
But history has receipts.
While the streets were burning, Tinubu and other APC leaders were reportedly in backroom meetings with the IMF, World Bank, and Western diplomats, pitching the Buhari project. The pitch was: “Give us power in 2015, and we will do what Jonathan failed to do, full deregulation and subsidy removal.”
The calculation: Nigerians protest, get tired, and accept it.
8 years later, Tinubu did exactly that on May 29, 2023. And he was right about one thing, nothing happened.
Atiku Abubakar has run for president 6 times. Every cycle, his economic team has pushed the same IMF-backed playbook: privatization, deregulation, subsidy removal, currency float.
In 2019 and 2023, he sought and expected Western endorsement as the “pro-business” candidate. But the West made a calculation: Tinubu was already delivering.
*Naira devaluation. Fuel subsidy gone. Electricity subsidy gone. New tax regime. All straight from IMF Article IV recommendations.
With that door closed, Atiku has now pivoted. His new line: “I will reinstate fuel subsidy.”
Is it the right policy for 130+ million Nigerians in multidimensional poverty? Absolutely.
Is the motive about the people? That’s doubtful.
– As VP 1999-2007, he chaired the National Council on Privatization. We sold NITEL, PHCN assets, and refineries under that agenda.
– In 2007, his economic blueprint also called for “full deregulation of downstream petroleum.”
– He has never opposed IMF conditionalities when they aligned with his business interests.
So the current promise looks less like conviction and more like a negotiation strategy. Win the street, then take that “mandate of the poor” to Washington, London, and the IMF boardroom to renegotiate.
Naira devaluation, fuel subsidy removal, electricity subsidy removal, tax reforms, these are not Nigerian ideas. They are IMF/World Bank structural adjustment policies, handed to local representatives, their puppets.
Tinubu is implementing them.
Atiku campaigned on them.
Now he wants to oppose them to get power, only to likely return to the same table.
This is not about Tinubu vs Atiku. It’s about a political class that agrees on the same exploitative economic model, but uses different rhetoric to get your vote.
We must resist characters whose only goal is to use Western institutions as instruments to loot Nigeria dry and economically subjugate our people.
You cannot spend 30 years promoting deregulation, then come back 6 months to elections to claim you are the “savior of subsidy.”
Same IMF script. Different actors. Same outcome for the poor.