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ADC warns Tinubu against 15% fuel import levy, cites rising economic hardship
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has issued a stern warning to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu regarding the potential consequences of adding to Nigerians’ economic burden through his endorsement of a 15 per cent import levy on petroleum and diesel products.
The opposition political organization contends that this additional taxation will intensify the already critical cost-of-living situation and potentially drive the populace toward widespread unrest.
Through a declaration issued by Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, the ADC recognized the merit in promoting domestic refining capacity while maintaining that such measures should not compromise citizens’ quality of life.
READ ALSO: Fuel Tax: Tinubu taking Nigerians to unknown destination, he’s lost!, says ADC
The party argues that implementing additional charges on imported petroleum products during a period when Nigerians are ‘suffocating’ under the weight of the government’s economic reforms reflects ‘insensitivity and poor judgement’.
The ADC issued a stark warning that this measure could drive petrol costs beyond N1,000 per litre, creating catastrophic effects for households, transportation operators, agricultural workers, and small-scale enterprises.
“From all indications, this new levy is likely to push the pump price of petrol beyond N1,000 per litre. If this happens, life would become even more unbearable for families, commuters, transporters, farmers, and small businesses already struggling under the weight of fuel subsidy removal without social protection and currency devaluation without safeguards,” Abdullahi said.
The organization rejected the administration’s assertion that the taxation would safeguard domestic production as ‘flawed’, pointing to the Port Harcourt refinery’s failure merely five months following a $1.5 billion renovation project that generated a ₦366.2 billion deficit.
“What has become clear to us is that the Tinubu administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda is, at best, a trial-and-error system and, at worst, a cynical, self-serving agenda that has no consideration for the ordinary people of Nigeria,” the party said.
The ADC charged the current administration with intensifying poverty through inappropriately timed economic strategies that emphasize fiscal experimentation rather than public welfare. The party observed that despite official proclamations of economic advancement, Nigerian citizens’ lived experiences present a contrasting picture.
“While the government continues to push the narrative of economic progress, food, rent, and transport, not to mention school fees, continue to be priced out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians.
“If the government continues with this latest tax attack, it will further compound the people’s suffering,” Abdullahi said.
Consequently, the organization called for swift withdrawal of the measure, labeling it as ‘ill-conceived and anti-people’. It maintained that economic expansion which condemns the majority to hardship lacks both sustainability and ethical foundation.
“The ADC therefore firmly opposes this ill-conceived import duty and warns the government not to push the people to the wall. We demand that it be reversed immediately. Nigerians deserve a government that plans, not one that panics,” the party declared.
Questioning the federal administration’s capability in managing national refineries, the ADC argued that penalizing importers who have sustained the energy market despite governmental inefficiency is unjust.
“A government that cannot run its own refineries has no business taxing those who keep the country running with their sweat and blood. President Tinubu must understand that economic patriotism cannot be enforced through pain,” Abdullahi said.
While affirming its backing for private sector participation in the petroleum industry, the ADC emphasized that energy sector transformations must be introduced progressively and supported by transparent investment in domestic refining alongside social safety nets for at-risk populations.
“If the goal is energy security and domestic refining, let there first be transparent investment in local capacity. Until then, any tax imposed to discourage import will only lead to people paying more for imported fuel, which still stands at 60 percent of supply, a gap that cannot be substituted overnight,” Abdullahi said.
The organization urged President Tinubu’s administration to exhibit understanding and strategic thinking in economic policymaking, cautioning that decisions motivated by urgency or external pressure would only deepen public disconnection.
“Nigerians are tired of paying for the government’s inefficiency. It is time to govern with compassion and competence, not experiments that turn citizens into casualties,” the party added.
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
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