Fuel Subsidy: Sowore, Amaechi, Obi Clash on Stage at NBA Conference

By: Abudu Olalekan

It was supposed to be a panel discussion. Lawyers, policy talk, a bit of intellectual back and forth.

Instead, Port Harcourt got a shouting match.

The Nigerian Bar Association’s annual conference in Rivers State turned into something closer to a campaign rally gone wrong on Monday, as three men chasing the same job tore into each other over fuel subsidy. Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress. Rotimi Amaechi, the African Democratic Congress vice-presidential candidate. And Peter Obi, flying the flag of the Nigeria Democratic Congress.

Nobody left that hall pretending it was cordial.

Sowore fires first

The session was meant to cover state affairs and economic policy. Sowore didn’t waste time on preamble.

He went straight for the political class, accusing them of dressing up hardship as reform and selling it to Nigerians for decades.

“You’re the only one who has been consistent about non-removal of fuel subsidy. It has been me. And it took Amaechi and his principal almost 10 years to catch up with me. They have now reversed their position on fuel subsidy. The question about subsidy is, who are you subsidizing? You are subsidizing the elites. You are subsidizing the governors,” he said.

Then he reached back into history. Way back.

“I was a student in 1989, they removed subsidy. In 1990, they removed subsidy. They said Nigeria will be better. We are in 2026, they are still removing subsidy. They have been robbing Peter to pay Bola Tinubu. That is what removal of subsidy is all about. The poor people of this country only benefit from subsidy from petrol, gasoline. There is no subsidy on kerosene… What did they build with it? Please, don’t let these politicians lie to you.”

He also tried, briefly, to be generous. Quoting something Amaechi had said earlier.

“I love one thing that Amaechi said. He said, apart from Sowore and Adebayo, the rest of us have been in government and we have failed. They have no business coming back. You guys should be apologizing to the Nigerian people.”

That’s when it broke.

“Stop lying, Sowore”

Amaechi didn’t wait for him to finish the sentence.

“Stop lying. Stop lying, Sowore. I said, judge us by our achievements,” the former Rivers governor shot back.

Sowore, being Sowore, kept going. And he aimed at home turf — Amaechi’s own record in the very state hosting the conference, plus his years as Minister of Transportation.

“When it comes to subsidy, right? Transportation policy is important. We have a former governor of Rivers State here, Amaechi, who built a rail line that went nowhere. If that rail line was working, subsidy would have been working for the people of Rivers State,” Sowore said.

Amaechi wasn’t having it.

He listed roads. Primary schools. The Lagos–Ibadan and Abuja–Kaduna rail lines. Then he turned to the room, half joking, half daring them.

“Where are Rivers lawyers? Let them take Sowore around and show him what I did as a former Governor.”

He asked lawyers from Ogun, from Kaduna, from wherever else, to speak up and confirm whether those trains still run. And when Sowore cut in again — one interruption too many — the composure snapped.

“Moreover, Sowore, when politicians are talking, close your mouth.”

The hall reacted. Loudly.

Then he turned to Obi

Having dealt with Sowore, Amaechi swung his attention to the man beside him.

“Peter Obi did not subsidize education in his state. Lecturers and doctors went on strike for 13 months. You may like him as a person, but he did not perform as a governor. That is the truth… I will not remove subsidy because the poor in Nigeria need to be subsidized instead of the rich. We are already subsidizing them with waivers. We have a duty to return power to the people.”

Obi picks the other side of the argument

When the microphone finally got to him, Obi didn’t back away from the unpopular position.

He thinks subsidy had to go. His quarrel is with how it went.

“I subscribe and I maintain that you need to remove subsidy. Mismanagement of the proceeds should not be the reason for not removing it,” he said. “What we would have done is that when we remove subsidy, we would have given the people alternative usage for the subsidy. What we have today is that the removal and the attendant resources being recovered are also being mismanaged and stolen.”

Then came the numbers, which is very much Obi’s thing.

“Assuming we use 5% of the 16 trillion naira recovered to address our primary healthcare—which is in a poor state where we now have more maternal and child issues than countries like India—it would cost about 800 billion naira. With 808,809 wards in Nigeria, allocating 100 million naira to each ward would transform primary healthcare completely.”

What it all came down to

Three men. Three completely different readings of the same policy.

Sowore says subsidy removal has always been a scam dressed in economics. Amaechi says keep it, but point it at the poor and not the rich. Obi says remove it, then spend the savings where people can actually feel it.

Nobody moved an inch. Nobody was ever going to.

But sitting in that hall in Port Harcourt, watching lawyers cheer and heckle in equal measure, one thing was clear enough — 2027 has already started. And it’s going to be loud.