An entrepreneur, diplomat and philanthropist Otunba Adejare Rewane Adegbenro has defended President Bola Tinubu’s May 2023 removal of the petrol subsidy.
He described the former regime as a ‘rent-distribution system’, whose benefits were captured by car-owning, urban, higher-income households and by smuggling networks rather than by ordinary Nigerians.
Adegbenro said in a statement that the old subsidy channelled roughly N18 trillion over 12 years through a small number of importers and marketers, with pricing and disbursement decisions made opaquely inside Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the presidency, and that its removal had produced measurable gains despite a rough transition.
He said monthly FAAC allocations to federal, state and local governments have risen since removal, giving sub-national governments – including opposition-controlled states – fiscal room they lacked before, while the parallel exchange-rate premium that fuelled fuel smuggling and forex racketeering has narrowed.
He noted NNPC has also begun publishing some data on fuel-related expenditure, though disclosures remain incomplete.
Adegbenro argued the removal carried a credibility benefit beyond fiscal savings, saying it had signalled to investors and multilateral lenders that Nigeria could sustain a politically costly reform, and that this credibility had lowered the barrier for the private-sector entrants the deregulated downstream market was designed to attract.
He was reacting to Africa Democratic Congressman (ADC )presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s pledge to restore the subsidy if elected in 2027, citing the Tinubu government’s failure to account for the savings generated since removal.
Adegbenro said that grievance was legitimate but did not justify reversing the policy, warning that restoring the subsidy would recreate the same opacity Atiku says he wants addressed.
Rather than reversal, Adegbenro proposed an independent audit of subsidy-removal savings and NNPC’s ‘Energy Security Expenses’ before the National Assembly, targeted cash transfers to transport and low-income households in place of the subsidy, and continued investment in domestic refining capacity and market liberalisation.