The African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on Saturday, accused President Bola Tinubu’s Senior Advisor on Digital/New Media, O’tega Ogra, of manufacturing figures and attaching them to his proposal on production subsidy to local refineries in Nigeria.
Atiku had said his proposed production subsidy would support locally refined crude, reduce the cost of fuel production and ultimately make petrol and other essential goods more affordable for Nigerians.
But the presidency said Atiku’s proposal failed while he was vice president during the past administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Posting on X, Ogra wrote: “Nigeria already tried your production-subsidy to local refineries idea while you were Vice President. We know the shambolic results of that production subsidy. You know it too.
“By 2002, data shows NNPC’s domestic crude allocation had risen to 445,000 barrels a day, supplied on preferential terms to the local refineries that were still working well then. The IMF estimated the revenue forgone from that arrangement at 3.2% of GDP in 2002 and 2.9% in 2003.
“I stated a fact which your boss and his then boss will agree with. The fact is that the Obasanjo/Atiku administration supplied domestic crude to local refineries under a below-market/implicit subsidy arrangement, just like he is proposing now. No wonder you are afraid to share your numbers.
“Did they give a production subsidy to local refiners then? YES
“Was the production subsidy illegally diverted, exported, corrupted and stopped? YES
“So, as Rufai would say, I put it to you that you still haven’t answered my question from two weeks ago. So, please leave @aonanuga1956 and answer this.”
Reacting, Atiku said that, contrary to Ogra’s questions, supplying crude to refineries under an old pricing arrangement is different from his proposed production subsidy.
In a statement by his media aide, Phrank Shaibu, the former vice president said: “@otegaogra, the problem is not that your question has not been answered. The problem is that you keep manufacturing your own numbers, attaching them to H.E. Atiku’s proposals, and then demanding that we defend your arithmetic.
“Supplying crude to refineries under an old pricing arrangement is not the same thing as Atiku’s proposed Production Subsidy. The proposal today is specific: support is tied to fuel actually refined in Nigeria; it is capped and budgeted, subject to appropriation, monitored against abuse, and must translate into lower pump prices for Nigerians.
“No subsidy for imported fuel. No blank cheque. No licence for arbitrage.
“So your N21.9 trillion “annual bill” is not Atiku’s figure. It is yours. You invented the assumptions, supplied the arithmetic and then congratulated yourself on the conclusion.
“That is not economic analysis. It is political fan fiction with a calculator.”
The former vice president charged Ogra to stop inventing price tags and claim that he supplied them.
Atiku added: “And since you have suddenly discovered concern for health, agriculture, salaries and capital expenditure, perhaps turn some of that energy towards the government you defend. Ask where the trillions supposedly saved from subsidy removal have gone.
Ask what record revenues and record borrowing have delivered while Nigerians pay more for fuel, food, transport, electricity and virtually everything else.
“Atiku’s argument remains simple: produce here, refine here, create Nigerian jobs and use targeted support to make energy and therefore daily life more affordable.
“You may disagree with the policy. But stop inventing a price tag and pretending Atiku supplied it.”
The NDC’s presidential candidate also criticised the presidential aide for failing to make the list of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council.
He added: “And @otegaogra, here is the part that should really concern you.
“You have spent weeks behaving like the APC’s self-appointed attack squad, auditioning loudly for relevance.
“Yet when the same APC assembled its bogus campaign team, your name was nowhere to be found.
“Not in the front row. Not in the back row. Not even in the footnotes.
That is quite a verdict, my dear brother.
“You are fighting desperately to prove your value to people who have already publicly demonstrated how little political value they place on you.
“Sometimes exclusion says more than any press release ever could.
“The APC left your name out. Consider that their own assessment.”
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