The Presidency on Sunday issued a sharp response to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s recent critique of President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies, particularly his calls for gradual reforms rather than Tinubu’s more immediate approach.
According to the Presidency, Atiku’s proposed policies would have left Nigeria in a worse state.
In a statement signed by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, the Presidency emphasized that Tinubu’s economic actions, though difficult, were necessary steps that previous administrations had neglected.
“While advocating for gradual reforms may sound appealing, Tinubu took measures that should have been taken decades ago by Alhaji Abubakar and his boss [Olusegun Obasanjo] when they had the opportunity,” Onanuga said in the statement, which was titled Our Initial Response to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The statement was prompted by Atiku’s social media post titled What We Would Have Done Differently, in which he criticized Tinubu’s reforms as “trial-and-error economic policies” and attributed the “excruciating pain” Nigerians are experiencing to the President’s decisions. Despite not holding office, Atiku stated that his recommendations were “in the interest of Nigerians.”
Since assuming office in May 2023, Tinubu has implemented a series of sweeping economic changes, including ending the fuel subsidy regime and unifying the foreign exchange rate.
While these measures aim to stabilize Nigeria’s economy, they have led to significant hardships for citizens, with rising costs of food, transportation, and other essentials.
In his post, Atiku, who served as Vice President alongside former President Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007, detailed his approach to handling subsidy removal and addressing security issues.
He argued that his policies would have been more considerate of Nigerians’ welfare and alleviated the burden of the reforms.
However, the Presidency dismissed these proposals, asserting that Atiku’s ideas were impractical and would not have been beneficial for Nigeria.
“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,” Onanuga countered.
Onanuga went further to criticize Atiku’s policy suggestions as vague and lacking in substance, reminding Nigerians that his ideas were rejected in the 2023 election. “First, Alhaji Atiku’s ideas, which lacked details, were rejected by Nigerians in the 2023 poll. If he had won the election, we believe he would have plunged Nigeria into a worse situation or run a regime of cronyism.”
The Presidency also pointed to Atiku’s record, recalling past controversies during his time in office. “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,” Onanuga continued, adding that despite Atiku’s attempts to “hoodwink” the public, he had not refuted Tinubu’s economic reforms because they were “the right things to do.”
The Presidency argued that Atiku’s preference for a gradualist approach revealed his disconnect from the gravity of the challenges President Tinubu inherited.
“It is so easy to paint a flowery to-do list. It is expected of an election loser,” the statement read. “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.”
According to the Presidency, no credible leader would continue with a system of fuel subsidies and forex arbitrage given the severe economic constraints Nigeria faces.
“No leader worth his name would allow dysfunctional fuel subsidies and arbitrage to persist without ending them surgically,” Onanuga asserted.
Responding to Atiku’s call for more empathy and a “human face” in implementing reforms, the Presidency stated that compassion has been a cornerstone of Tinubu’s policies. “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,” Onanuga concluded, assuring Nigerians that the administration has prioritized social safety nets and targeted support for those affected by recent economic shifts.
As Nigerians continue to grapple with the impacts of Tinubu’s reforms, the back-and-forth between the Presidency and Atiku underscores the ongoing debate over the best approach to restore economic stability and alleviate the burden on citizens.
