For years, Nigeria poured billions into fuel subsidy with little to show on the ground.
This, according to Tinubu Media Vanguard (TMV), a socio-political group in it ongoing fuel subsidy Fact-Check (Series 2), was the lot of Nigeria’s fuel subsidy before 2023.
The group asks a blunt question: FUEL SUBSIDY: WHERE DID MONEY GO BEFORE 2023?
According to Convener, TMV, Eminent Adeboye, the money never reached clinics, classrooms, or highways. “For years, billions meant for hospitals, roads, and salaries ended up in 3 places,” he stated.
First, OIL CABALS pocketed payments for fuel that was never delivered. Second, SMUGGLING cartels drove trucks across borders to sell cheap Nigerian petrol in Benin, Togo, and Cameroon. Third, DEBT ballooned — N13.7 trillion in just 3 years — as successive governments borrowed monthly just to keep the subsidy alive.
The fallout was brutal. Adeboye noted that 27 states could not pay salaries. Projects stalled mid-way. Poverty deepened while corruption thrived under the cover of “cheap fuel.”
“Should we return to this pernicious trajectory? Never again!” the statement declared. It argued that the #RenewedHope reform did not create hardship, it exposed a leak that had been bleeding the treasury dry.
The TMV Fact-Check concludes with a call to action: share the truth, so Nigeria stops subsidizing corruption and starts funding development.
