Atiku Compares Tinubu-Era Fuel Price To Other Oil Producers, Laments That Nigeria’s Cost At 80% Of Minimum Wage Is Killing
Former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has faulted the petrol price and lamented that Nigerians could no longer afford basic living costs under the regime of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In a statement signed on Tuesday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) said Tinubu’s latest remarks attacking Atiku’s economic proposals exposed a contradiction in government policy.
The statement cited petrol prices in other oil-producing countries to argue that Nigeria’s ₦1,400 per litre was oppressive, killing and unsustainable.
It went on to list fuel prices in nations such as:
- Saudi Arabia at about ₦778 per litre
- Kuwait at ₦872
- Algeria at ₦475
- Angola at ₦441
- Libya at roughly ₦34 per litre.
The statement said: “A Nigerian earning the ₦70,000 statutory minimum wage requires ₦56,000 merely to buy 40 litres of petrol at ₦1,400 per litre. That is 80 per cent of an entire month’s minimum wage. Before that worker buys food, pays rent, electricity, school fees or medical bills, four-fifths of his monthly wage can disappear into just 40 litres of petrol….
“Atiku is ashamed on your behalf that Nigeria, one of Africa’s major oil-producing nations, has reached the point where ordinary citizens pay significantly more for petrol than citizens of several other oil-producing countries with substantially higher incomes.”
According to Shaibu, the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan (AERP) proposed targeted support for Nigerian crude supplied to domestic refineries within a “capped, transparently budgeted and independently audited framework” to bring down pump prices.
“Reduce fuel costs and you reduce pressure on transportation. Reduce transportation costs and you reduce the cost of moving tomatoes, rice, yam, livestock and manufactured goods… That is structural relief,” he said.
Shaibu faulted Tinubu for condemning proposals to reduce energy costs while simultaneously promising relief measures “in the next few weeks.”
“You condemn Atiku’s proposal to reduce the cost of energy as a return to the past, yet in the same breath promise that, ‘in the next few weeks,’ your government will provide cheaper transportation, increase food production and introduce relief for vulnerable Nigerians. Bola, why now?” he asked.
“For more than three years, Nigerians have endured punishing transport fares, soaring food prices, crippling energy costs and wages that buy less every month…. Why did Nigerians have to suffer for more than three years before your government discovered that economic growth must reach ‘the dining table and the pocket’?”
The Atiku camp also demanded accountability on major government revenue figures.
“We have repeatedly demanded a comprehensive reconciliation of the nearly ₦30 trillion identified across Federation Account revenues, deductions, savings, transfers and related entries,” Shaibu said.
“Your government says subsidy removal mobilised about ₦15.8 trillion between June 2023 and December 2025… So what measurable improvement reached the average Nigerian household in exchange for that sacrifice?”
“There is equally the disclosure that Import Duty Exemption Certificate approvals covered about ₦34 trillion worth of imports in 2025. Nigerians deserve to know who benefited, the values attached to those exemptions, their legal basis and the measurable public benefit they delivered….
“When you return, bring answers. Reconcile the Federation Account figures of ₦30 trillion. Provide full transparency around the duty exemptions of over ₦34 trillion. Explain what Nigerians concretely received for the ₦15.8 trillion your government says subsidy removal mobilised. And explain why intervention is supposedly backward when Atiku proposes it, but miraculously becomes Renewed Hope when you announce it.”
