Not on speaking terms

Let's begin with our first story.

Nigeria has officially entered its campaign season and we have been seeing... party movements, political parties who have been seeing candidates back and forth, banter.

I mean, it's all politics.

But what is most important is, I mean, issues-based politics.

And right now, the former vice president, Atiku Abukar, who is also a presidential candidate for the 2027 general election, is challenging the Nigerian government.

And he's saying...

You removed false subsidy.

What's happening? Where are these funds? Why are we not seeing its impact on the economy? How is this money being used? I mean, it's calling for more accountability, transparency, which, of course, a lot of citizens have been calling for.

On one hand, we're hearing, oh, false subsidy has been removed.

There's also this rumor that we've been hearing saying, I mean...

The government is still paying subsidy.

So what are your thoughts? How should the Tenable-led administration respond to this? And what can the government also do to ensure that these savings benefit Nigerians?

Well, as much as Atiku's question is very much politically motivated, I think it's asking the question that most Nigerians have been asking since the week of this removal of full subsidy.

Because when this happened, three years ago-ish, there were permits that all the money saved from full subsidy was going to be used in infrastructure and on social programs that would directly affect our lives and we can see the impact of.

Since what the president proposed then was that if he used this full subsidy savings on these other proposed projects, they will impact the life of the average Nigerian more than the first subsidy was at the time.

So he removed it and we were hoping, because it wasn't an easy blow, it was a very difficult blow for everyone, but we were hoping that what the president promised would come to pass.

Well, since then, that has been the case.

We haven't especially seen what exactly all these monies have been used for.

All we've been hearing are speculations and excuses.

Two weeks ago, yes, Taiwo Oyele came to say that about 9.39 trillion of the 15.8 trillion that was said to have been saved for subsidy in the past three years has been spent on wages.

Which is very funny to me because it's a situation of where you give your mother probably your savings and then when you come back to ask her for it, she'll tell you that she used it to buy clothes.

So now you have nothing to say.

That was how that sounded to me.

It was a very...

We don't like when we give our mothers money because, you know, they'll be like, oh, we'll save, keep it for you.