ABUJA — The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, Middle Belt Forum, MBF, and Northern Christians yesterday disagreed over President Bola Tinubu’s claim that Northern Nigeria remained the biggest beneficiary of his economic reforms.
While ACF and MBF described the President’s claim as surreal and cynical, having made the North the poverty capital of Nigeria, Northern Christians disagreed, saying Tinubu is doing better than the late Muhammadu Buhari did as president, insisting that the North is benefiting from reforms of the present government.
President Tinubu and All Progressives Congress, APC, had restated that removal of fuel subsidy by his administration was a difficult but necessary decision that redirected national resources into productive sectors, saying the North is the biggest beneficiary of the reforms. ..READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE .
This was as the APC pushed back against a proposal by former Vice President and African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, that he would restore the subsidy regime, if elected at the 2027 elections.
Indeed, the ADC concurred with Atiku yesterday, saying it remains committed to restoring fuel subsidy, describing the policy as a key part of its strategy to address the rising cost of living in the country.
Why North is biggest beneficiary of subsidy removal
This position was canvassed by the National Chairman of the APC, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, who represented President Tinubu at the second edition of the Policy Roundtable organised by the APC Professionals Forum, tagged the Asiwaju Scorecard Series, with the theme: “Dissecting the Renewed Hope Deliverables and Achievements,” yesterday.
Tinubu said his administration inherited “fuel subsidy distortions, multiple exchange-rate windows, weak revenue mobilisation, foreign-exchange shortages, rising debt-service pressures and years of inadequate investment in critical infrastructure” when Tinubu took office on May 29 2023.
He said gross external reserves had risen to about $52.7 billion by August 2026, while consolidated non-oil revenue grew from roughly ₦13.63 trillion in 2023 to ₦16.4 trillion in the first two quarters of 2026.
The President added that the merchandise trade position improved from a surplus of about ₦44.8 billion for all of 2023 to approximately ₦7.54 trillion in the first quarter of 2026 alone, with real Gross Domestic Product, GDP, growing by 4.43 per cent in the second quarter of 2026 and inflation easing to about 15.4 percent.
He linked the improved figures to his administration’s $1 trillion economy target by 2030, tying it to plans for an integrated five-port maritime and logistics corridor connecting Lagos, Ondo, Ibom, Port Harcourt and Calabar, complemented by rail and road links such as the Lagos-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano corridor, the Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway and the proposed Calabar-Maiduguri Trans-Sahara Super Highway.
He said: “The biggest beneficiaries of this economy will be the Northern part of Nigeria, because they will now be trading with countries, trading with Niger, trading with Chad, trading with Burkina Faso, trading with Southern Sudan, trading with Northern Cameroon, trading with Central African Republic… The North is the next business destination of Nigeria.”
The President also cited the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline, AKK Project, the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, technical and vocational training schemes, and the CREDICORP credit initiative as investments meant to “translate macroeconomic stability into microeconomic prosperity.”
Tinubu asked Nigerians to weigh the choice ahead of 2027 between consolidating the reforms or reversing them.
He said: “For the All Progressives Congress, the answer is clear. We choose progress, productivity, investment, infrastructure, innovation, Nigerian enterprise, exports, human capital, and we choose President Bola Tinubu.”
Also speaking, the Chairman, Board of Trustees, BoT, of APC Professionals Forum, Dr Isa Yuguda, who chaired the Fuel Subsidy Task Force in 2009, said the committee he led at the time “examined the subsidy regime and uncovered serious irregularities, fraudulent practices, and financial leakages that placed a huge burden on the Nigerian economy.”
He said the subsidy system “had become inefficient and consumed enormous public resources that could have been invested in education, security, agriculture, healthcare, infrastructure, and other productive sectors, adding that its removal was “a difficult but necessary reform intended to redirect national resources towards long-term development.”
According to him, President Tinubu “demonstrated the political courage to implement a reform that previous administrations had acknowledged as necessary but could not fully execute,” with over ₦15 trillion reportedly saved from the exercise.
He also listed NELFUND as a beneficiary in the education sector, alongside increased funding, operational support and equipment investment for the armed forces and other security agencies.
The former Bauchi governor acknowledged that Nigeria “continues to confront serious security challenges arising partly from instability in some neighbouring countries, porous borders, and cross-border movement of armed groups and criminal networks into Nigerian territory,” and called for strengthened border security, intelligence gathering and regional cooperation to consolidate gains already recorded.
On the 2027 contest, Yuguda argued that Atiku’s proposal to bring back the subsidy “may appear attractive to citizens seeking immediate relief, but it must be examined against our national experience.”
He noted that the old regime “was associated with massive leakages, fraudulent claims, inefficiency, and a significant drain on public finances.”
He warned that reviving the system “without clearly addressing these problems risks misleading Nigerians for short-term political gains and could reverse the fiscal space now supporting critical national investments.”
Yuguda insisted that “the 2027 presidential election should, therefore, be about issues, achievements, and realistic solutions.”
