I won’t return subsidy – Tinubu

President Bola Tinubu has said he has no regrets over the removal of the fuel subsidy, insisting that Nigeria will never return to the policy.

He spoke on Monday at a forum tagged ‘Together till 2027: An Evening with Original City Boy’, organised by the City Boy Movement in collaboration with the Relax-Tinubu-Is-Fixing-Nigeria movement. Both groups are campaigning for his re-election in 2027.

Tinubu said Nigeria was heading towards bankruptcy before he removed the subsidy.

He criticised former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, over his promise to restore the subsidy.

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Comparing the removal to the biblical exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, Tinubu said the country could not return to the past.

“I could listen to my political opponents promising a return to subsidy. Most of all, sometimes I remember my scripture studies, both the Bible and the Holy Quran. When Moses left Egypt, they faced the challenge, and the Red Sea parted and gave way.

“You cannot ask Moses to go back to Egypt. We wake up with ideas, original thoughts, and deep thinking to move this country forward. With your energy, your support, we will never go back to Egypt. No regrets.

The president said the economy was growing steadily and expressed confidence in the future, insisting that the country was on the right path.

He urged his supporters to see the 2027 election as a contest for their own future rather than his political ambition.

“Nigeria must win this election before any candidate does. You are not campaigning for me. You are campaigning for your own future, and that future is renewed hope. There’s nothing that will push us back,” he said.

Tinubu acknowledged that the past three years had been difficult, saying his administration had taken tough decisions.

He said he chose to take responsibility for the country’s challenges rather than dwell on the failures of previous administrations.

“We understood that a nation cannot borrow its way to greatness,” he said.

The president added that critics had wrongly predicted that young Nigerians would reject his reforms.

“They were wrong. You are here,” he said.

Ahead of the January 16, 2027 presidential election, Tinubu urged the youths to take his message to their campuses, markets and villages.

On the Students Loan Act, which he signed in 2023, he said he had no regrets, adding that more than one million students had received support through the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).