I won’t back down on my decision to restore targeted subsidy —Atiku

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has insisted that he will not back down on his plan to restore a targeted subsidy to cushion Nigerians from the current economic hardship, despite criticism from the Presidency.

Reacting on Sunday through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) said the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan (AERP) does not propose a return to the opaque subsidy regime of the past.

“What he proposes is a targeted, capped, transparently budgeted and independently audited intervention with a clearly defined exit mechanism, accompanied by accelerated domestic refining, competition, mass transportation and measures to restore household purchasing power,” Shaibu stated.

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Atiku demanded transparency over the beneficiaries of petroleum tax credits and incentives, saying Nigerians deserve to know the value of revenue surrendered and whether local investors have equal access.

“The test of economic reform is not how loudly a President announces that ‘subsidy is gone’; it is whether citizens are better off, businesses are productive, jobs are being created and household incomes can sustain basic living costs,” he said.

“A government cannot preach unrestrained market forces to the poor while practising interventionist economics for rich foreign friends. That is not economic reform. It is classic economic apartheid.”

The former Vice President also warned against what he called the deliberate misrepresentation of his economic position. He said he supports investment, including foreign investment, and recognises the role of transparent, performance-based incentives in attracting capital.

However, he rejected what he described as “intellectual dishonesty” in presenting government intervention as sound economics when it benefits corporations, and as economic ignorance when it targets Nigerian citizens.

“You cannot subsidise capital and criminalise relief for citizens. You cannot offer cushions upstairs and call suffering downstairs reform,” Atiku said.

He argued that the current approach applies two different standards: intervention and protection for big investors, and harsh market forces for ordinary Nigerians.

According to him, the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan is built on a different philosophy.

“Markets must work, investment must earn a fair return and public finances must be protected, but the Nigerian citizen must remain the ultimate beneficiary of economic policy,” he stated.