Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu of blaming the opposition for the country\u2019s economic hardship. He said the President was trying to evade responsibility for his administration\u2019s policies.\n<\/p>\n
Tinubu had earlier on Saturday blamed his political opponents for hunger and poverty in the country while speaking at the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign flag-off in Kaduna.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI hear my opponent talking about hunger, poverty. Who created it? They did! They created the hunger, they created the poverty. We are trying to eradicate it,\u201d the President said.\n<\/p>\n
Atiku, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, said Nigerians were entitled to demand answers from the APC-led government over rising living costs, poverty, insecurity and questions surrounding public expenditure.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued on Saturday by the Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said Tinubu could not attribute the country\u2019s hardship to the opposition after about 11 years of APC rule at the federal level.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMr President, blaming the opposition for hunger is either delusion or a staggering case of political amnesia. The APC governed Nigeria for eight years before you took office. You have added another three and a half years.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cNigerians know who has been in power, and hardship did not begin when the opposition started talking about it. Stop insulting their intelligence and answer for your record,\u201d the statement quoted him as saying.<\/p>\n
He said the hardship confronting households and businesses was a consequence of government policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardship your administration has brought upon Nigerians is real. You cannot deny it by blaming others,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Atiku also questioned the President\u2019s decision to commission the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway from a stadium.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYour decision to commission the unfinished Abuja to Kaduna Expressway from inside a stadium shows how far removed you are from the daily reality of Nigerians. A road cannot be completed with a speech or a ribbon-cutting ceremony,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
He challenged the administration to account for the effects of its economic policies, particularly the removal of the petrol subsidy and the depreciation of the naira. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhich administration removed the petrol subsidy and watched the naira fall from about \u20a6471 to \u20a61,329 to the dollar?\u201d Atiku asked.\n<\/p>\n
He also cited a World Bank estimate that 63 per cent of Nigerians would be living below the national poverty line in 2026.<\/p>\n
Atiku further raised questions about federal budgeting and public expenditure, including the extension of the 2024 budget into 2025, the operation of a separate 2025 budget and spending recorded under energy security.\n<\/p>\n
He specifically referred to \u20a67.13tn recorded under \u201cenergy security\u201d in 2024 and \u20a611.2tn in pipeline-related spending by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, demanding explanations about the beneficiaries and the results achieved.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cNigerians deserve to know who received these sums and what was delivered,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
He also called for explanations over what he described as a $12.4bn gap in Nigeria\u2019s external accounts for the first half of 2026 and $22.5m paid in \u201cother charges\u201d on the Abu Dhabi financing facility.\n<\/p>\n
Atiku linked the economic concerns to the country\u2019s security situation, asking the administration to account for persistent killings, kidnappings and displacement in communities across the country.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the questions Nigerians are asking while your government blames the opposition,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
He maintained that the administration should be judged by its performance rather than its explanations.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot govern for three years, make life harder, and then blame others for describing the hardship. You asked who created the hunger. Nigerians are asking what you have done to end it.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 2027 presidential election will be a referendum on your record. Nigerians have felt the cost of your leadership in their homes, markets and communities,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu of blaming the opposition for the country\u2019s economic hardship. He said the President was trying to evade responsibility for his… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}