Nostalgic Return to Scotland: An Amendment to Atiku’s Production-Subsidy Proposal

Last week, I returned to Scotland, more than eleven years after completing my Ph.D. at Heriot-Watt University’s School of Energy Geoscience Infrastructure and Society. I landed in the cold City of Edinburgh on Sunday morning to the warm reception of my friend and leader of the Inspire Nigeria Group, Evong Evong.

We attended service at the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Open Heaven Edinburgh, where old friends were pleasantly surprised to see me. My business destination was Aberdeen, but how could I return to Scotland without seeing the people who made Edinburgh memorable? Evong and his wife, Inire, would not let me leave without a sumptuous Efik lunch. I warned them that they must visit Dallas so my wife and I can retaliate appropriately.

A Lesson for Nigeria from the United Kingdom

As always, Evong and I moved from family and Biblical discussions to politics. We discussed the 1707 Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England, under a renewed constitutional pressure after Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum.

Evong and I have spent years discussing how our federation can work better. Through Inspire Nigeria Group, we submitted constitutional proposals to the National Assembly in 2024 advocating a less expensive parliamentary system and stronger regional federating units.

If a centuries-old political union still requires continuous negotiation and accommodation, Nigeria cannot assume that nation-building runs on autopilot.

My £17.65 Lesson

Our discussion made me change my Ember electric-bus booking twice—from 4:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m., and finally 7:13 p.m. Evong dropped me at the station at about 6:40 p.m. Then the bus was delayed for nearly an hour.

Every few minutes, the app updated me and apologised. The bus arrived around 8 p.m. I reclined my seat and slept until we arrived in Aberdeen around 11 p.m.

At my hotel, I discovered Ember had already emailed me and refunded my £17.65 fare as credit. I used the credit for my return journey.

It reminded me of 2012, when ScottishPower paid me £54 compensation after a 12-hour outage caused by storm damage. That was about three months of my electricity bills at the time.

There is a philosophy behind these experiences: people pay for services, but service providers also owe them quality delivery.

A Working System is not Cheap

This resonated because I had just completed my four-part investigation into Nigeria’s electricity sector.

I support cost-reflective pricing where necessary to attract investment and sustain infrastructure. But cost-reflective pricing must produce service-reflective accountability. If Band A customers pay premium tariffs for at least 20 hours of daily supply, persistent failure must have consequences.

A functioning market cannot mean only that citizens must pay. Providers must perform, regulators must regulate, and consumers must meet their obligations too. Electricity theft is no more defensible than persistent failure to provide a service for which customers have paid.

But a working market requires more than accountability; it must also confront affordability for those genuinely unable to absorb essential energy costs.

A Reunion After Eleven Years

On Friday, my friend Dr. Ityona Amber, an Energy/Mechanical Engineering lecturer at Robert Gordon University, took me around Aberdeen. Ityona and I undertook our Master’s and Ph.D. studies at Heriot-Watt and had not seen each other since 2015.

We ended the evening over dinner at a Turkish restaurant by the North Sea beach. Our conversation returned to Nigeria and energy.

We agreed that Nigerians without reliable and affordable grid electricity cannot simultaneously be expected to pay full international prices for petroleum products they often use as substitutes for electricity.

Petrol does not merely power cars. It keeps barbers, welders, pepper grinders, tailors and small restaurants productive. Subjecting such an economy indiscriminately to international energy prices while incomes remain extremely low risks deepening poverty.

Social Dimension of Energy

Britain recognises that not every household can bear the same energy-cost burden. Its Warm Home Discount provides eligible households with a £150 annual electricity-bill discount, with around six million households expected to benefit this winter. Scotland separately provides targeted winter-heating support: £62 for qualifying low-income recipients and £105 to £317 for eligible pensioners.

The United States has similar principle. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program helps lower-income households with energy bills and crises, while the Weatherization Assistance Program helps them reduce consumption and bills through efficiency improvements.

These are capitalist economies. Neither has abolished market pricing nor promises everybody free energy. They recognise a simple principle: market pricing and targeted social protection can coexist.

Eliminating a corrupt subsidy mechanism should not eliminate the social question the subsidy was supposed to address. President Tinubu should reconsider throwing away the baby with the bathwater and, without returning to the old regime, consider Atiku’s production-subsidy proposal.

Increasing wages without confronting energy costs that continually erode purchasing power can become self-defeating.

I support government’s CNG programme, but as part of the energy mix. The Presidency reports more than 120,000 converted vehicles, 400 certified conversion centres and 90 CNG refuelling stations. Those are numbers, but CNG cannot be an overnight substitute for Nigeria’s enormous petrol and diesel economy. Conventional-fuel affordability still matters while electricity, gas and transport infrastructure develop.

An Amendment to Atiku’s Proposal

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has proposed a “production subsidy”: rather than subsidising imported petrol, government would support crude refined in Nigeria through a capped and independently verified mechanism, with electronic tracking, domestic-supply obligations, fiscal limits, audits and penalties for diversion.

Some Nigerians dismiss the proposal as political desperation. I see considerable merit in it. But I would suggest an amendment: take the production subsidy further by targeting its ultimate benefit.

Why should a wealthy Nigerian driving a new luxury SUV receive the same public support per litre as a taxi driver carrying workers or a welder, barber, tailor or small restaurant struggling to remain productive?

Rather than begin with discounted barrels for refineries, begin with the people and productive activities that deserve support. How many public-transport vehicles and qualifying small businesses are there? Which vulnerable households and senior citizens qualify, and how much fuel do they reasonably need?

From those needs, determine the eligible litres, calculate the refined products and crude required to meet that demand, and establish what the subsidy would actually cost the country.

Nigeria already has much of the required data infrastructure—NIN, vehicle and VIN records, tax information and CAC registration. The subsidy should follow the verified person, vehicle or productive activity—not every litre sold in Nigeria.

The counterargument is corruption: false income declarations, private vehicles disguised as commercial ones, phantom transactions and cross-border diversion. The risk is real, but it argues for safeguards, not abandonment. Cross-referenced records, transaction limits, electronic custody-transfer monitoring, independent audits and data analytics can make fraud easier to detect and punish.

Between Two Extremes

Government should neither subsidise unlimited consumption nor expose everybody, irrespective of income and economic function, indiscriminately to international energy prices. Those who can afford market prices should pay them; support for others should be limited, targeted, measurable and independently audited.

This is neither socialism nor free energy. It is intelligent government. It is statecraft.

Over the coming weeks, I will dig into the data: who genuinely needs support, how many litres that represents, how much crude is required, what it would cost, and how technology can prevent another subsidy racket.

Alhaji Atiku’s production-subsidy proposal has opened a policy conversation. My amendment is simple: don’t stop at subsidising production. Identify where that subsidy creates the greatest social and economic value, quantify it, target it and measure it.

Can Nigeria build an energy-support system that is fiscally responsible, economically productive, socially humane—and measurable?

I believe we can.