Olu Allen
For once, Nigerians should put the personalities aside.
Forget the arguments about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s past. Forget Atiku Abubakar’s past. Forget the insults, the campaign theatrics and the familiar political warfare.
Let us talk about petrol.
This week, Atiku Abubakar put forward a new proposal on fuel subsidy, arguing that government support should be targeted at domestic refining rather than returning to the old import-dependent model.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has rejected the proposal, describing it as evidence of “serious ignorance” about governance and the economy.
That disagreement is important.
Not because it gives Nigerians another opportunity to choose sides, but because it raises a question that should dominate the 2027 election: what economic policies will actually make life better for Nigerians?
What exactly is Atiku proposing?
Atiku’s proposed Atiku Economic Recovery Plan is not simply a call to restore the old fuel subsidy regime.
The proposal would provide qualifying domestic refineries with crude oil at preferential prices, subject to conditions.
The refineries would have to actually process the crude, the benefit would be expected to reach consumers, allocations would be independently verified and the program would operate within an annual fiscal limit approved through the national budget.
The principle, as Atiku puts it, is that the subsidy should “follow the barrel”.
There is a certain logic to that.
If government must provide support, targeting domestic production rather than subsidising imported petrol could potentially serve two purposes: reducing the cost burden on consumers while strengthening local refining capacity.
But a policy sounding reasonable on paper does not make it automatically good policy.
Atiku still needs to answer difficult questions.
How much would the programme cost annually? Which refineries would qualify? Who would determine the preferential crude price?
How would government prevent politically connected operators from capturing the benefit? How would it ensure that cheaper crude actually translates into cheaper petrol at filling stations?
And perhaps most importantly, what happens when the fiscal ceiling is reached?
To Atiku’s credit, the proposal attempts to address some of these concerns through a spending ceiling, auditing, tracking and a sunset mechanism.
But Nigeria has never had a shortage of policies that looked good on paper.
Implementation has always been the harder part.
Tinubu has a case to make too
Tinubu’s argument is that removing the petrol subsidy was necessary and that the policy has significantly increased government revenue.
Finance Minister Wale Edun recently said about N15.8 trillion accrued to the Federation Account between June 2023 and December 2025 as a result of subsidy removal, with N10.4 trillion going to states and local governments.
If those figures accurately reflect the fiscal consequences of subsidy removal, they constitute a legitimate argument for the policy.
More revenue to the federation can mean greater capacity for states to pay salaries, invest in infrastructure and provide public services.
But revenue mobilisation is only one side of the argument.
Nigerians also need to know what has happened to the money after it was collected.
Has the additional revenue translated into better public services? Has it improved infrastructure? Has it reduced the pressure on state finances?
Has it produced measurable improvements in citizens’ welfare?
These are not partisan questions.
They are accountability questions.
Atiku has also raised questions about what he describes as energy security expenses in NNPCL’s audited accounts.
According to his campaign, the accounts recorded approximately N4.84 trillion in Energy Security Expenses in 2023 and N7.13 trillion in 2024.
His argument is that Nigerians should understand what those expenses represent and whether any of them amount, economically, to a form of subsidy.
That deserves an answer.
Not because Atiku asked the question.
Because Nigerians should know what their government is spending their money on.
This is how the 2027 debate should look
The coming election does not have to become another contest in which Nigerians spend months arguing about who is a better person.
We have done that before.
Instead, candidates should be forced to explain their policies.
If Tinubu says subsidy removal was necessary, his government should show Nigerians the numbers: the savings, the additional revenue, the expenditure and the measurable outcomes.
If Atiku says a targeted subsidy for domestic refining can reduce petrol prices, he should show Nigerians the numbers: the expected cost, the beneficiaries, the mechanism for preventing abuse and the projected impact on pump prices.
If either candidate claims that his policy will improve the economy, the burden should be on him to explain how.
And if either side gets the numbers wrong, Nigerians should be willing to say so.
That is what political analysis should be.
My position
I do not know yet whether Atiku’s proposal would work.
Neither should anyone pretend to know simply because they support Atiku or oppose Tinubu.
There are reasonable arguments on both sides.
The removal of petrol subsidy has undoubtedly changed Nigeria’s fiscal landscape. But increased government revenue does not automatically mean that citizens are better off.
Likewise, a targeted subsidy for domestic refining could potentially reduce costs and encourage local production.
But a subsidy is still a subsidy, and Nigeria’s history provides enough reasons to be sceptical about how such programmes are administered.
The real question, therefore, is not whether subsidy is good or bad in the abstract.
It is whether a particular policy produces better outcomes than the alternatives, at a cost the country can afford and through a system that can resist corruption and political capture.
That is the conversation Nigerians should demand in 2027.
Not ethnic calculations. Not religious mobilisation. Not endless excavation of political history.
Policy. Numbers. Results.
Nigeria does not need politicians who can merely win arguments. It needs politicians who can make policies work.
The 2027 election should therefore be an opportunity to move beyond personality politics and ask a more difficult question of every candidate:
What exactly will you do, how much will it cost, how will you implement it, and how will Nigerians know whether it worked?
That is the standard we should demand from everyone seeking our votes.
Allen writes on public affairs and advocates for good governance.
