The 2023 budget President Bola Tinubu inherited from Muhammadu Buhari's administration contained no allocation for fuel subsidy payments, the National Chairman of the People's Redemption Party (PRP), Hakeem Baba Ahmed, has disclosed.

Baba Ahmed made the revelation during an interview on Trust TV, offering context to Tinubu's decision to announce subsidy removal during his inauguration speech on May 29, 2023.

According to the PRP chairman, the budget passed under Buhari had already been structured without funding for the subsidy, leaving the incoming administration with no legal or financial basis to continue payments.

"The 2023 budget prepared under former President Muhammadu Buhari had already been structured without funding for fuel subsidy," Baba Ahmed said during the Trust TV interview. "This meant the new administration faced a situation in which there was no budgetary allocation available to continue the payments after Tinubu took office".

Baba Ahmed described Tinubu's decision to address the situation immediately as courageous, though he questioned the manner in which the president handled the announcement.

The PRP chairman argued that Tinubu could have allowed the previous administration to bear responsibility for the difficult policy by explaining to the National Assembly that Buhari had left no financial provision for subsidy payments.

He added that the government could also have made it clear that borrowing money to maintain the subsidy was not a sustainable option.

"In his view, such an approach would have reduced the extent to which Tinubu personally became associated with the hardship caused by the policy," the report quoted him as saying.

Tinubu's announcement on inauguration day that "fuel subsidy is gone" sent petrol prices soaring and triggered immediate fuel queues across Lagos and other major cities. The policy has since become one of the defining economic decisions of his administration, contributing to inflation that rose from 22.41 per cent in May 2023 to significantly higher levels in subsequent months.

Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has previously defended the decision, stating that Tinubu "could not have retained petrol subsidy because there was no budgetary provision for it" when his administration came on board.

Former Speaker, Yakubu Dogara made similar remarks in September 2024, urging Nigerians to accept the reality of the removal and noting that "there was no way Tinubu could have helped the situation because the Muhammadu Buhari administration did not make provision for it in the 2023 budget".

Baba Ahmed, who previously served as spokesman for the Northern Elders Forum and as a Special Adviser to the President on political matters, has consistently criticised the economic direction of the Tinubu administration while acknowledging the fiscal reality that compelled the subsidy decision.

"The very day President Tinubu was sworn in, by his own admission, the issue about removing subsidy was not even in his speech," Baba Ahmed had said in a separate interview.