President Bola Tinubu blasts Atiku Abubakar’s economic solutions as unrealistic and detrimental to Nigeria’s growth.
President Bola Tinubu has lambasted his one-time associate, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, for criticising his handling of the Nigerian economy especially the removal of petrol subsidy and floating of the naira.
Atiku had on Sunday said the Tinubu administration destroyed the nation’s economy as the removal of petrol subsidy triggered galloping inflation which caused widespread hardship and unprecedented cost of living crisis.
The former number two citizens said things would have been different if the implementation of the policies were not done haphazardly.
In a lengthy post on his X page, Atiku detailed what he would have done differently to prevent the economic hardship Nigerians are now grappling with.
Reacting to Atiku’s analysis of and solutions to Nigeria’s challenges, the presidency asserted that Atiku’s treatise on the state of the economy was replete with impraticable solutions.
The presidency stated that Atiku offered harebrained solutions to the country’s economic conundrum, accusing him of contributing to the woes millions of Nigerians face.
The presidency said the former vice-president’s idea of “consulting upon entering office” stemmed from his utter lack of knowledge of the state of the economy when Tinubu assumed power.
“The economy was in dire need of urgent action; Tinubu had to quickly adopt a firm action,” presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said in a statement on Sunday evening.
Onanuga claimed that since Atiku’s loss to Tinubu, he has “shown more interest in undermining President Bola Ahmed Tinubu than in addressing his party’s internal crises. We suspect he is envious of Tinubu’s position—an office he has unsuccessfully sought six times.
The statement added, “We can only speculate what detrimental impact Atiku’s proposed lengthy town hall and Village Square meetings would have had on Nigeria’s economy if he had been elected president and taken such an approach.
“The country needed a proactive leader such as Tinubu, who immediately set to work to address economic challenges rather than one who would have squandered precious time on consultations and a questionable privatisation agenda.”
The presidency described Mr Atiku’s castigation of the president as “harebrained propositions devoid of realistic alternatives,” pointing out that the ex-vice-president must reckon with “the decades of mismanaged economy” inherited by the current administration, including exorbitant subsidy expenditures far exceeding government earnings from crude oil.
“We expect Atiku to commend what the Tinubu administration has done concerning revenue generation for the Federation,” stressed the statement.
He said Atiku’s proposal to privatise the four government-owned refineries, which collectively could only meet a fraction of the nation’s daily fuel consumption when activated, lacked originality.
“The Tinubu administration focuses on revitalising these refineries while supporting modular refineries and the Dangote Refinery, which has greater capacity.
“This approach will guarantee domestic production and stabilise retail prices by reducing foreign exchange challenges. It includes selling crude oil to the refineries in naira, enabling potential cost reductions that could reflect in retail prices,” said the statement.
The presidency alleged that as vice-president, Atiku oversaw the sale of the nation’s assets to private individuals and cronies at low prices and that most public enterprises Atiku sold had been stripped and had become dead assets.
“In 2007, investors were only willing to offer $160 million for 51% equity in the Port Harcourt Refinery, while the Kaduna Refinery had an offer of $102 million. According to industry experts and the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s Head of State at the time, who cancelled the sale of the refineries by the Obasanjo-Atiku government, the offered bids were considered scrap value.” the presidency stated.
The presidency urged Mr Atiku to stop “pushing for unrealistic timelines” but should “recognise the necessity of President Tinubu’s bold reforms.”
“Let me emphasise that the citizens who cast their votes in the 2023 presidential election are well aware that I did not lose,” Mr Atiku stated on Tuesday. “Rather, we find ourselves in this predicament because the election was criminally stolen from the Nigerian people,” Mr Abubakar stated.
