November 12, 2024
By Idris Buba
Former Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Atiku Abubakar, has insisted that President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies and approach to governance were negatively impacting on Nigerians.
In a statement on Monday , at Abuja, Atiku’s Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, in response to an earlier statement issued by the Presidency on Sunday, which stated that Atiku’s criticisms of Tinubu’s policies were driven by jealousy.
Atiku said: “On July 8, 2024, Tinubu announced that import duty on essential goods like food would be lifted for 150 days. “
“But over 120 days later, the policy is yet to take off, while Nigerians continue to die daily due to increasing costs, including food inflation, which now exceeds 40 per cent, the highest in decades.
“The brazen disobedience to a government policy by Tinubu’s appointees and the failure of the Finance Ministry to issue a gazette after over four months reflects the fatuousness, inanity and incompetence that characterizes the Tinubu administration.
“Sadly, rather than focus on governance, they are preoccupied with verbally assaulting their opponents, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, while using compromised courts to foster crisis in the opposition. What a shame.”
Atiku stated that Tinubu’s abysmal performance since he assumed office had shown clearly to all Nigerians that he came into office unprepared, hence the many policy flip-flops.
READ MORE; Atiku slams Tinubu over fuel subsidy crisis
“Tinubu was unprepared for office. He acts first and thinks of the consequences afterwards. This was why he announced an abrupt removal of the petrol subsidy without any cushions. After seeing the effect, he then hurriedly decided to push a CNG initiative, which even he and his ministers have not embraced, hence their refusal to use it.“ he added.
“The CNG initiative has so far failed to fully kick-off because of a lack of gas infrastructure in most states. The result is that transport costs continue to soar along with prices of food.“
“In his mid-term expenditure framework, he projected the exchange rate at N700/$1 in 2024 and N650/$1 by 2025. Rather than sack his economic advisers, he continues to live in a fool’s paradise, deceiving Nigerians about the FX reserve of $ 40 billion when, in fact, the net reserves are less than 20 per cent of that. Let the CBN release its financial statements of 2023 if he is sure of his achievements.”
Atiku, described emergence of a new terror organisation known as Lakurawa, as announced by the military authorities as unfortunate.
He argued that with the incessant grid collapses in the North due to the activities of criminal elements, Tinubu ought to focus more on improving security, to boost investments.
The former vice president, said President Tinubu, had decided to play politics with security by appointing his kinsmen in top security and economic positions.
“Even on the economy, he put his kinsmen in every key position beginning from Finance Minister, Trade and Investment, CBN, Customs and FIRS. Even President Muhammadu Buhari was not this brazen.
“”Unlike Tinubu, Atiku is not a bigot. He has also not refunded money to the United States for alleged drugs trafficking.
“Despite a huge revenue challenge, Tinubu commits over $13billion to the controversial Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, rendering scores of Lagos residents homeless just to please his associates while other pressing matters are starved of funds.”
Atiku tasked Tinubu on making and implementing policies and programmes that will improve the lives of Nigerians who were under severe hardship.
