The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2027 election, Omoyele Sowore, has pledged to reinstate fuel subsidy if he wins the presidency.
Sowore made the pledge during an interview on ARISE TV on Tuesday while presenting his proposed solutions to Nigeria’s economic difficulties.
Asked directly if his administration would restore fuel subsidy, Sowore replied, “Absolutely.”
He argued that despite the Federal Government’s claim that petrol subsidy had been removed, the government continued to subsidise other areas of the economy, including the naira.
“In the first place, they are still paying subsidy. They just changed the name of whatever they call it. They are subsidising not only petrol—because they don’t have enough and can’t produce locally—they are also subsidising the Naira. That’s one thing they will never tell you,” he said.
According to him, the exchange rate of the naira is also being sustained through what he described as hidden government support.
“The reason the Naira is at a certain, you know, rate to a dollar, is because it’s being quietly and secretly subsidized,” he said.
Sowore acknowledged that governments can support their currencies but questioned the Federal Government’s position on subsidy, particularly its claim that the policy had been eliminated.
“Yes, but why are you lying about subsidy then? You know, we have to stop telling lies about… See, what everybody has agreed happened to subsidy, it’s not that subsidy is bad, because there’s no country in the world that doesn’t subsidize their poor,” he said.
The AAC candidate further argued that government subsidies in Nigeria disproportionately benefit wealthy individuals rather than the poor.
He pointed to customs waivers enjoyed by importers as an example, contrasting them with the benefits previously received by ordinary Nigerians through subsidised petrol.
“In fact, the people that get the most subsidy in Nigeria is not the poor, it’s the rich. All the people who bring in, you know, foreign goods and services, go and look at their waivers at customs. You will know who is getting real subsidy compared to the people who are getting 10-10 Naira from each gallon of petrol that was taken away from them,” he said.
Sowore also attributed part of the naira’s decline and the country’s wider economic difficulties to the removal of petrol subsidy.
“And you saw what happened immediately you remove subsidy. Look at where your economy tanked. Your Naira also went down the toilet,” he said.
He said tackling Nigeria’s economic problems would require a departure from what he described as outdated ideas that had allowed poverty to become entrenched in the country.
“So, there’s no need for us to sit down here and ask, ‘Oh, what would you do differently?’ Of course, what we have to do differently first and foremost is to get rid of this old mentality and the ideas that brought poverty to become a standard, you know, household name in Nigeria,” Sowore said.
He also took issue with the description of Nigeria’s economic hardship as “multidimensional poverty”, citing food insecurity as evidence of the severity of the situation.
“The Food and Agriculture Organization regards Nigeria as one of the places where you need food in 2026. That is to say, we are so bad, and we are about the only country producing oil that is on FAO’s list of countries that, you know, that has food shortages. That’s, that’s the country we are in,” he said.
Sowore accused the government of placing too much emphasis on how the economy is presented to the public rather than confronting the realities Nigerians face.
President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of the petrol subsidy on May 29, 2023, during his inauguration, declaring that “subsidy is gone.”
Tinubu had argued that the subsidy was no longer sustainable because of its increasing financial burden, saying the resources would instead be channelled into infrastructure, education, healthcare and job creation.
The policy took effect almost immediately, with petrol prices rising by more than twice their previous regulated levels. The increase subsequently contributed to higher transportation and living costs across the country.