President Bola Tinubu has firmly ruled out reversing Nigeria’s petrol subsidy removal, pushing back against growing calls to reinstate the regime as the country marked its 66th Independence anniversary on Thursday.
Delivering his nationwide Independence Day address, Tinubu defended the economic reforms his administration has pursued since taking office in 2023, acknowledging that the changes had been painful and that their “side effects were real” — but insisting that walking them back would mean returning to policies that never actually solved Nigeria’s underlying economic problems.
“Our reforms did not create the weaknesses in our economy. They confronted them,” he said.
Tinubu took aim at what he described as “influential but regressive voices” pushing for a return to the old subsidy arrangement, framing such calls as an attempt to abandon the broader reform agenda altogether. “Now, as certain influential but regressive voices would have us abandon the treatment and return ourselves to the abuse of addictive subsidies, we must resist their siren song,” he said, urging Nigerians to remember why the reforms were introduced in the first place and to reflect on how far the country has come since.
To illustrate his point, Tinubu likened Nigeria’s economy before the reforms to a patient diagnosed with cancer, forced to choose between enduring difficult treatment or simply masking the pain. “Nigeria was like a sick patient who receives the terrible news that he has cancer,” he said. “His doctor explains that the treatment will be difficult and painful, but that it offers a strong prospect of recovery. The patient has a choice. He can begin treatment, endure its discomfort and fight the disease. Or he can ask only for morphine, dull the pain and leave the cancer to spread.”
He argued that Nigeria’s past leadership had consistently chosen the easier, short-term path. “For too long, Nigeria’s leaders chose morphine while praying for a miracle that never came,” he said.
Part of a broader Independence Day message
The remarks formed part of a wider address in which Tinubu also argued that his reforms did not create Nigeria’s economic difficulties but were instead a response to problems that had been building for years, and described the country’s situation as having reached a particularly low point by the time he assumed office in 2023.
His comments come amid an intensifying political debate over fuel subsidy, with opposition figures including ADC presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar pledging to restore some form of the subsidy if elected in 2027.
The Presidency has consistently rejected such proposals as fiscally unsustainable, arguing that any reversal would plunge the National Petroleum Company back into the financial distress that prompted the subsidy’s removal in the first place.