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Economy Subsidy

“Nigeria will go bankrupt”: Tinubu rules out any return to petrol subsidy

Responding to Atiku Abubakar’s proposed “production subsidy”, the President says the country has nothing left to pay for it and that the economy is “on the right trajectory”.

Tinubu 2027 Newsroom 2 min read

A petrol filling station beside the Lekki–Epe Expressway in Lagos
File photo, 2021. A filling station on the Lekki–Epe Expressway, Lagos. Photo: Yemi festus / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ruled out a return to petrol subsidy, warning that reviving the scheme would bankrupt the country.

Speaking on Monday at a State House event with the City Boy Movement and other youth support groups, the President responded directly to a proposal by Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, for what Atiku has called a “production subsidy”.

“No, Nigeria will go bankrupt,” the President said, adding that the country had “nothing left to pay subsidy.”

No, Nigeria will go bankrupt.

— President Tinubu, on calls to restore a subsidy

“On the right trajectory”

Tinubu said growth was running at about 4.6 per cent. “We are on the right trajectory,” he said.

He also criticised the Ways and Means financing used under past administrations, in which the Central Bank of Nigeria lent directly to the federal government. “We printed currencies as if there was no tomorrow,” he said.

The removal of the fuel subsidy remains central to the campaign’s economic case. At the inauguration of the APC Presidential Campaign Council on 14 October, the Imo State Governor and campaign council secretary, Hope Uzodimma, credited the President with ending both the petrol subsidy and multiple exchange rates. “You were the only one who chose to end them,” Uzodimma said.

The numbers behind the argument

Different measures of growth are in circulation. The President cited about 4.6 per cent; Uzodimma cited 4.43 per cent, up from 4.23 per cent; and the World Bank’s October Nigeria Development Update put growth for the first half of 2026 at 4.2 per cent, against 3.9 per cent a year earlier. The Bank has also raised its forecast for 2026 to 4.3 per cent.

The Bank reported that federation revenues rose 69 per cent in real terms between 2023 and 2025, with states the biggest winners, while gross external reserves climbed to $53.8 billion at the end of August 2026.

At the same event the President thanked young Nigerians for backing the subsidy removal alongside currency and tax reforms. “You understood that a nation cannot borrow its way to greatness,” he told them.

Nigerians vote in the presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday 16 January 2027. INEC has published a final list of 18 presidential candidates, including Tinubu of the APC and Atiku of the ADC.

Sources

  1. Tribune — Tinubu to Nigerians: we won’t return to subsidy regime
  2. Channels TV — Tinubu inaugurates APC Presidential Campaign Council
  3. Nairametrics — World Bank raises Nigeria’s 2026 growth forecast to 4.3%
  4. Channels TV — INEC publishes final list of presidential candidates for 2027 election

This report is compiled from the public news reports and official statements listed above. Quotes and figures are attributed to those who made them.