‘You Cannot Ask Moses To Go Back To Egypt,’ Tinubu Insists No Fuel Subsidy Return
Tinubu announced an end to fuel subsidy during his inauguration in May 2023. The policy shift sparked an immediate hike in petrol pump prices. The post ‘You Cannot Ask Moses To Go Back To Egypt,’ Tinubu Insists No Fuel…
Fuel subsidy removal was one of the earliest and most consequential policy decisions of Tinubu's presidency, announced in his inauguration speech in May 2023. The move ended decades of government-funded petrol price caps that successive administrations had struggled to sustain, but it also triggered an immediate and sharp rise in pump prices, pushing up transport fares and the cost of goods nationwide. Subsidy payments had long been criticised by economists and international bodies as a drain on government revenue riddled with corruption, yet the removal's effect on ordinary Nigerians' cost of living has kept the policy politically contentious, with opposition figures and citizens repeatedly calling for its reversal or for cushioning measures.
The coverage agrees that Tinubu used the Biblical analogy of Moses not returning to Egypt to argue the policy is irreversible, framing it as a necessary, one-way economic reform. Leadership's account adds that the remarks appear directed at Atiku Abubakar, suggesting a political dimension to the pushback, while Channels and Punch focus more broadly on subsidy critics in general. None of the reports detail what specific relief measures, if any, the government is offering to offset the policy's continued impact on households.