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Former All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman and ex-governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, has argued that Nigeria’s fuel subsidy system had evolved into a channel for large-scale financial abuse, insisting that it no longer served the interests of ordinary citizens.
Speaking during an interview on News Central TV’s programme “60 Minutes with Mr Kay”, Oshiomhole said the scale of subsidy payments in recent years showed that the system had moved far beyond its original purpose.
According to him, earlier debates around subsidy removal involved relatively smaller figures during the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo.
“The subsidy we were fighting to retain is no longer what is happening,” Oshiomhole said. “Because at that time, the numbers, under Obasanjo was either 20 billion, 40 billion, 50 billion, will be saved if subsidy is withdrawn, but when it now escalate to 6 trillion, 7 trillion, I said, this is no longer a subsidy.”
He alleged that the system had been manipulated by insiders within the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, to siphon public funds under the guise of subsidy payments.
“People now steal money in NNPC and they just invest it away as subsidy,” he said. “And therefore, it no longer makes economic sense, even to the poorest of the poor, to retain that subsidy, which create a big window for operators of NNPC from time to time, to continue to defraud the country. It has become a lazy window that everybody exploits.”
Oshiomhole argued that defending the subsidy system in its current form would ultimately harm the very citizens it was meant to protect. He said labour groups and other stakeholders should not support a structure that benefits only a few individuals while the government borrows to sustain it.
“So, labour cannot be seen to protect a system that is being used by a few to enrich themselves at the expense of public welfare,” he said. “Government had to borrow on behalf of all for the theft that is being carried out by a few.”
The former labour leader maintained that his stance had consistently been in favour of ending the subsidy once it became clear that the policy had been compromised.
“If you play the tape back, you will see that I spoke in favour of the removal of the subsidy, that it was no longer the one that we were defending,” he said. “Therefore, it should go.”
Oshiomhole also noted that other prominent figures had previously supported removing the subsidy, including former Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido and former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
“Lamido spoke the same way, Okonjo Iweala spoke the same way, that the subsidy should go,” he said.
However, he recalled that some labour leaders continued to defend the policy at the time, including veteran trade unionist Isa Aremu. Oshiomhole said he understood the ideological argument behind subsidies but argued that Nigeria’s political and economic structure made it impractical.
“I said, Isa, I understand the logic of subsidy. When the working class, the communist manifesto prevail, then you can restate the subsidy,” he said.
“Now, with the bourgeoisie in power, what they are doing in the name of subsidy is completely against the best interest of poor Nigerians.”
His comments add to the ongoing national debate about the long-term impact of fuel subsidy removal and the transparency of Nigeria’s oil revenue management.
