Opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC) plans to review the removal of petrol subsidy if elected into office next, its spokesman Bolaji Abdullahi hinted yesterday.

He also urged Nigerians not blame decades of governance failures on leaders of opposition parties, who held public offices in the past.

Abdullahi said the opposition coalition should be rated by the alternatives it is offering rather than demand apologies for the past.

Before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced the removal of petrol subsidy in his inauguration speech on May 29, 2023, the Federal Government was paying about N1.3 trillion annually to marketers.

Other presidential candidates in 2023, including Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP), called subsidy payment as fraud and promised to discontinue with it if voted into office.

Atiku is ADC’s standard bearer and Obi is flying the flag of the Nigerian Demoractic Congress (NDC) in the 2027 presidential poll.

But the ADC vowed yesterday to revisit the rollback if elected in 2027.

The party also defended its criticism of the continued detention of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai.

Stating its supports for the prosecution of anyone with a legitimate case to answer, the party said the rule of law must be respected.

Abdullahi spoke while responding to questions on whether prominent figures in the coalition, many of whom served in previous administrations, owed Nigerians an apology before seeking power again.

Rejecting the suggestion, Abdullahi argued that dwelling on the past would not solve Nigeria’s present challenges.

“What you are demanding is an inquest. I don’t think I have anything to apologise for. Personally, I don’t think I have anything to apologise for,” he said.

He maintained that although successive governments had made mistakes, the country’s problems required a fresh political direction rather than endless blame, saying, “The problems that confront us today as a people can only be solved if we embrace a new way of thinking.”

According to him, the coalition itself emerged from the recognition that Nigeria’s political culture had failed.

Demographics

“The coalition that led up to the African Democratic Congress was based on a recognition that this country is in the mess we are in today because of the kind of politics we have played over the years, and that Nigeria is not going to get out of this mess until we play a different kind of politics,” he noted.

Abdullahi said Nigerians should judge the ADC by its proposed reforms rather than the political history of its leaders.

He said: “We are building a new political party that is based on a different philosophy of governance. A political party that recognises the fact that politics has not served the people of this country in the last 30 or 40 years, and we have to embrace a new way of thinking and a new way of politics.

“What concerns the Nigerian people today is that this country has been run to the ground. ADC represents an alternative. The question you should ask me is: what does ADC plan to do differently?”

On the economy, Abdullahi said the ADC would review the present administration’s approach to fuel subsidy, arguing that the policy had deepened hardship because it was poorly conceived and badly implemented.

“We will revisit the issue of subsidy. We will revisit it because we are a social democratic party. Our immediate concern is how do we ease the burden on the people,” he declared.

According to him, the problem was not subsidy itself but the way it was administered.

He said: “We looked at what they have done and we said, no, this is wrong because we know that the problem is not the subsidy itself. It is the governance of the subsidy.

“The ADC is saying withdrawing subsidy from everyone is as bad as giving subsidy to everyone.”

Arguing that governments across the world still subsidise strategic sectors, he said “there is no country in the world that does not give one kind of subsidy or the other.” (The Nation)