Economic Reforms: Nigerians rejected your ideas in 2023 election, Presidency tells Atiku

The Presidency has hit back at former Vice President Atiku Abubakar following his criticism of President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms.

The clash began after Atiku, in a statement on Sunday, outlined what he claimed would have been a more effective approach to tackling Nigeria’s economic challenges.

Atiku criticised Tinubu’s handling of key reforms, including the removal of fuel subsidies, and proposed a slower, more cautious rollout of economic policies.

He argued that his administration would have been more empathetic and better prepared to handle the fallout of such reforms.

“I am not the president, Tinubu is. The focus should be on him and not on me or any other. I believe that such inquiries distract from the critical questions of what President Bola Tinubu needs to do to save Nigerians from the excruciating pains arising from his trial-and-error economic policies,” he wrote on X.

Responding later in the evening, the Presidency, through presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, said Atiku “tried to discredit President Tinubu’s economic reform programmes” while pushing his untested agenda as a better alternative.

The Presidency added that Nigerians rejected Atiku’s ideas in the 2023 election, claiming his proposals lacked substance.

“First, Alhaji Atiku’s ideas, which lacked details, were rejected by Nigerians in the 2023 poll,” Onanuga said.

The Presidency also claimed that if Atiku had been elected, his administration would have been riddled with corruption, citing Atiku’s alleged plans to sell key national assets to close associates.

“If he had won the election, we believe he would have plunged Nigeria into a worse situation or run a regime of cronyism,” he wrote.

“Abubakar lost the election partly because he vowed to sell the NNPC and other assets to his friends.”

The Presidency’s statement also took aim at Atiku’s tenure as vice president from 1999 to 2003 under President Olusegun Obasanjo, accusing him of overseeing a “questionable privatisation programme”

“He (Atiku) and his boss (Obasanjo) demonstrated a lack of faith in our educational system and both went to establish their universities while they allowed ours to flounder,” he added.

“Talk is cheap. It is easy to pontificate and deride a rival’s programmes even when there are irrefutable indices that the economic reforms yield positives despite the temporary difficulties.”

The Presidency also noted that despite Atiku’s futile attempt to hoodwink Nigerians again in his statement that “it is gratifying that the former VP could not repudiate the economic reforms pursued by the Tinubu administration because they are the right things to do.”

The presidency, however, defended Tinubu’s economic reforms, stating the president “met a country facing several grave challenges” with “fuel subsidies were syphoning away enormous resources” that it could not afford, as well as the “criminal arbitrage in the forex market.”

It stated, “No leader worth his name will allow these two economic disorders to persist without moving to end them surgically.”

The Presidency also dismissed Atiku’s call for a “gradualist approach,” stating that it “only showed that he (Atiku) was not in tune with the enormity of problems inherited by President Tinubu.”

“It is so easy to paint a flowery to-do list. It is expected of an election loser,” the presidency added.

“While advocating for gradual reforms may sound appealing, Tinubu took measures that should have been taken decades ago by Alhaji Abubakar and his boss when they had the opportunity.

“Alhaji Abubakar calls for empathy and a human face to reforms. We have no problem with this as it resonates well with our administration’s focus. President Tinubu has consistently emphasised the need for compassion and protection of the most vulnerable.

“The administration has prioritised social safety nets and targeted support for those affected by recent economic transitions.”