President Tinubu Carpets Atiku Abubakar Over Negative Comments On Economic Reforms
The Presidency has replied former Vice President and PDP presidential candidate in 2023 general election Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. The Waziri Adamawa had carpeted some of the economic policies of the current government which he said has yielded no genuine reform, rather it has brought more Nigerians down to the poverty level. Adding that if he were the President, he would have demonstrated more empathy as his reforms would wear a human face.
Atiku noted that his government would have been more strategic in the design and implementation of reform fallout mitigating measures.
In her response, the Presidency lambasted the former Vice President for trying to dicredit President Bola Tinubu’s economic reform programmes while pushing his untested agenda as a better alternative.
Adding that Alhaji Atiku’s ideas, which lacked details, were rejected by Nigerians in the 2023 poll.
The presidency said, “If Atiku Abubakar had won the election, we believe he would have plunged Nigeria into a worse situation or run a regime of cronyism”.
“Abubakar lost the election partly because he vowed to sell the NNPC and other assets to his friends. Nigerians have not forgotten this, nor would they be comforted by Atiku’s antecedents when he ran the economy in the first term of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government between 1999 and 2003.
“As vice president, Atiku supervised a questionable privatisation programme. He and his boss demonstrated a lack of faith in our educational system, and both went to establish their universities while they allowed ours to flounder”.
“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”.
It said further that despite the futile attempt to hoodwink Nigerians again in his statement, it is gratifying that the former Vice President could not repudiate the economic reforms pursued by the Tinubu administration because they are the right things to do.
His advocacy for a gradualist approach only showed that he 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.
According to the statement, President Tinubu met a country facing several grave challenges. Fuel subsidies were siphoning away enormous resources we could ill afford, and there was criminal arbitrage in the forex market.
No leader worth his name will allow these two economic disorders to persist without moving to end them surgically.
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.
The statement further said that Atiku’s call for this admnistration to wear a human face is in tandem with the policy of President Tinubu’s admnistration.
” 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,” the statement concluded.
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