OPINION: Subsidies and subsidies, President Tinubu.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, subsidies are still subsidies. Your administration says NNPC Retail will surrender its profit margins from petrol sales to help ease the hardships Nigerians are facing. The government also suggested ways to keep petrol prices stable, such as setting a maximum of ₦1,350 per liter for landing charges or ex-gantry charges. However, the government claims that this step is not a subsidy. I find it confusing when the government admits that Nigerians need help, but seems uncomfortable calling it what it is.

On September 26, I wrote an article entitled Nigeria Is Not a Subsidy-Free Economy. I explained that ending fuel subsidies does not mean all subsidies or public support in Nigeria disappears. Recent news supports this, but also raises bigger questions about who owns public resources and what the government’s relationship with society is. Whose money does the NNPC give, and who benefits from those sacrifices? For starters, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is owned by Nigerians through the Federation.

According to Article 53(3) of the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Petroleum hold the shares for the Federation. President Tinubu does not own the NNPC, and his government has no personal claim to its revenues. Companies are public assets, and their businesses must provide benefits to the people who own them.

If the NNPC gives up some of its revenues to lower petrol prices for Nigerians, this is not an act of presidential generosity. It simply uses community resources to help the community. The profits provided by NNPC may remain with the company, but returning that value to Nigerians through lower prices is a fair way to demonstrate public ownership. So, the government is not providing aid to Nigerians; this means allowing the true owner to profit from what is his. This brings me to a principle from tort law that helps explain my point.

The make-whole principle in tort law aims to return the injured person as close as possible to their original position through compensation. I use this idea as an analogy for public economic responsibility, not to suggest any legal wrongdoing. When economic changes and policies place a heavy burden on households, measures that help restore their lost purchasing power should be seen as an attempt to improve the situation, not as an act of government benevolence.

When we look at the relationship between the Nigerian people and their publicly owned oil companies, it is clear that the people are not outsiders looking to private companies for help. They are the main beneficiaries of businesses run with national resources and public ownership. When a company donates a portion of its revenues to help relieve society’s financial hardship, it tries to balance the value of those resources with the well-being of the people who own those resources.

Commercial profitability is indeed important, but this cannot be separated from the welfare of society. A national oil company temporarily sacrificing some of its revenues to support its owners, pursuing the public interest, is not an extraordinary act of kindness. Reading Murray N. Rothbard’s Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure, first published in 1969, makes the government’s insistence on terminology particularly interesting.

Rothbard, an American economist of the Austrian School, criticized how people often try to make difficult economic realities sound better by changing the words used. He points out that terms like depression are being replaced by recession, slowdown, and other milder words. He noticed that changing language can change the way people see things, even if the actual situation remains the same.

Calling what NNPC does discounting, temporary margin waivers, or price smoothing does not change who owns the resources used. The statement does not change the real benefits Nigerians gain when their public companies receive lower revenues to help them. When assessing public policy, what matters is the substance, not the label. The government’s view also misses an important point in public finance.

What a government decides not to collect can be just as important as what it spends. Tax breaks, special financing and revenue transfers can provide economic value to those entitled to benefit, even if they are not included in the budget. When public resources are used to alleviate hardship, their impact should not be ignored just because the government calls it something else.

President Tinubu, I understand the desire to avoid returning to the old and flawed petrol subsidy system and its financial and management problems. But this should not stop governments from seeing the real benefits of using public resources to help households. Nigerians have repeatedly faced increases in transportation costs, food prices and other basic needs. Temporary assistance from their national oil companies should be seen as part of the bigger economic picture, not as special favors from the president.

The real test of these interventions will be how much they restore people’s purchasing power, how many households benefit, and whether the aid reaches transport operators and their passengers. Nigerians have the right to know the value of the benefits provided and whether transport fares will fall as petrol prices fall. They should also know what to expect after the first 30 days. True accountability means explaining the benefits and costs, not simply saying that the policy is not a subsidy. My main point remains the same.

Nigeria is not free from subsidies, and there is no harm in using public resources to ease economic hardship. The government manages national wealth for its people, not for itself, and it is Nigerians who should benefit. When their own companies give up their revenues to reduce their financial burden, it provides added value to the people who provide them with public roles.

President Tinubu, subsidies are still subsidies. More importantly, Nigerians are not getting help from their government. They only receive the value of what is already theirs. In tort law terms, the government is trying to make them whole.

By Abidemi Adebamiw