Tinubu’s govt focused on attacking opposition, not governance — Atiku

The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, has said the economic policies of President Bola Tinubu are killing Nigerians.

The former vice president said rather than focus on governance, Tinubu’s administration is focused on attacking the opposition.

Atiku said this in a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, in Abuja, on Monday.

This followed a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, accusing Atiku of jealousy since losing the 2023 presidential election to Tinubu.

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%, 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 characterises 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 crises in the opposition. What a shame!”

Atiku further stated that Nigerians could now see that Tinubu came into office unprepared due to his many flip-flop policies implemented in the last 18 months.

He said, “Tinubu was obviously unprepared for office. He acts first and thinks of the consequences afterwards. This was why he announced an abrupt removal of 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.

“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 $40bn when, in fact, the net reserves are less than 20% of that. Let the CBN release its financial statements of 2023 if he is sure of his achievements.”