Former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, has described former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s proposal to restore petrol subsidy as a political strategy aimed at winning the support of Nigerians affected by the hardship caused by subsidy removal.

Speaking during an interview on Arise TV on Monday, Fayemi compared Atiku’s proposal to the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket adopted by President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 election.

“My take is that Atiku’s proposal on subsidy is the political equivalent of our own Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023. It’s a political strategy. It’s not an economic construct,” he said.

Atiku, who is the presidential candidate of the APC in the 2027 election, recently pledged to restore petrol subsidy if elected, while accusing the Federal Government of failing to account for savings from its removal.

President Tinubu has criticised the proposal, describing it as evidence of “serious ignorance” of governance and the economy.

Atiku, however, said his proposal was not a return to the old subsidy regime but a targeted, capped, budgeted and independently audited intervention designed to support domestic production.

Fayemi said the proposal was likely to resonate with Nigerians struggling with the impact of subsidy removal.

“But understandably, it is a political strategy that will sell with those who are hard done by the impact of fuel subsidy removal,” he said.

The former governor said he remained a strong advocate of subsidy removal, noting that he had supported efforts to end the policy for years.

He, however, criticised the manner in which the Tinubu administration implemented the reform, saying adequate measures were not put in place to cushion its impact on vulnerable Nigerians.

According to Fayemi, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum had worked with the Federal Government and the World Bank to develop a safety-net strategy for Nigerians expected to be most affected by subsidy removal.

“What President Tinubu inherited, in fairness to him, was the work that had already been completed by that [Buhari] administration. The only challenge it had was the way it was done,” he said.

Fayemi said Atiku was capitalising on the continued economic hardship facing poor Nigerians, who he argued were more concerned about their daily survival than the technical debate surrounding fuel subsidy.

“Frankly, they [poor Nigerians] don’t want to go into the minutiae of subsidy removal and no subsidy removal. They just want to live reasonably well, eke out a living, have one or two meals a day, be able to send their kids to school, not be taken in by sickness or anything that might create further problems for them,” Fayemi said.

He added: “So I think the way we saw Muslim-Muslim ticket as a political strategy in order to maximise the vote for our party in 2023, I believe that’s what the opposition candidate is also trying to take advantage of.”