Emir of Kano and former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Muhammad Sanusi II, has said the removal of petrol subsidy prevented Nigeria from sliding into bankruptcy.

Speaking on Saturday at the second edition of the Kano International Poetry Festival (KAPFEST), organised by the Poetic Wednesdays Initiative, Sanusi described the subsidy regime as unsustainable, warning that it exposed government finances to fluctuations in global oil prices, exchange rates, transportation, and refining costs.

“Subsidy was simply the government saying, ‘If the price of petrol is N100, Nigerians will pay N70 and I will pay N30,’” he explained. “But beyond that, the government also placed a hedge fixing petrol at N65 per litre irrespective of whether the international price of oil was $10 or $100 per barrel. Who paid the difference? The government. And this was always going to bankrupt Nigeria.”

The monarch criticised successive administrations for failing to fix local refineries, arguing that the subsidy only enriched foreign refineries while exporting Nigerian jobs.
“If you look at the billions and billions spent on subsidy and imagine that money invested in refineries, Nigeria would not be where it is today,” he said.

Sanusi maintained that while production subsidies could be justified, subsidising consumption was economically harmful. He recalled warning, as CBN governor in 2012, that persisting with subsidy payments was like “a man running towards a ditch.”

According to him, Nigeria eventually reached a point where government had to borrow not only to fund subsidies but also to service debts an unsustainable trend.

He urged Nigerians to see subsidy removal not just as an economic necessity but as an opportunity to build a stronger and more self-reliant nation.