President Bola Tinubu has dismissed opponents who vow to bring back the fuel subsidy, telling a campaign crowd in Jigawa that anyone making such a pledge is not being honest with Nigerians.
His target was clear without being named, ADC’s Atiku Abubakar and NDC’s Peter Obi, both of whom have said they would reinstate the subsidy if elected in 2027.
Tinubu himself scrapped the subsidy at his inauguration in 2023, and on Tuesday he defended that decision as the only fiscally credible path.
Speaking in Dutse, the Jigawa State capital, he said: “Those who think they should bring subsidy back are liars. How will you pay for those commitments? How will you repair the roads? How will you maintain them? How will you function?
“The labourers, the granite suppliers, the rock suppliers they are eating and they are surviving.”
The President also used the rally to tout NELFUND as his administration’s answer to the cost of education, and revealed where part of its funding comes from.
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He said: “We have taken away the problem of education of the children by establishing the NELFUND. NELFUND is our weapon against poverty and we will continue in that direction.
“Every money recovered from irregularities by the EFCC is now directed to NELFUND to educate our children.”