Former Vice President of Nigeria and Presidential candidate of the PDP in the last elections, Atiku Abubakar, has described President Bola Tinubu’s Monday night national broadcast as uninspiring deceptive, and a complete waste of time.
In a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, which was obtained by Africa Today News, New York on Tuesday, Atiku, claimed the President’s speech was allegedly done to dissuade the organised labour from embarking on a nationwide protest.
Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP), in the 2023 polls, stressed that the broadcast by Tinubu was an afterthought. He noted that the President’s claim that the minimum wage would soon be reviewed upwards was an indication that he failed to make proper plans before the removal of petrol subsidy.
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‘Tinubu’s speech was hurriedly put together in order to dissuade the suffering masses and the organised labour from embarking on protests. Rather than apologise for removing subsidy without providing a cushion for the poor, he went about accusing subsidy thieves of being behind the current suffering. If he is sure of this, why hasn’t he arrested them?
‘Tinubu also lied when he claimed that he had for years been an advocate of subsidy removal. This was a man who in 2012 described petrol subsidy removal as “the Goodluck Jonathan tax” and sponsored protests in Lagos State. After he dubiously got to power, he lacked imagination on how to address the issue and then removed the subsidy but without a plan.
‘Tinubu says he will provide N50,000 (roughly $60) to 1, 300 nano businesses. This is reminiscent of the dubious trader moni and the monthly N20,000 spent on the public works programme of the last APC government which not only failed to stimulate the economy but also worsened poverty as funds went into private pockets.
‘What mechanism is in place to ensure that poor Nigerians access this? The answer is none. This is nothing but deception as we shall all see in the coming weeks.’
Atiku dismissed the President’s plan to give 500,000 hectares of land to farmers in order, so as to boost agriculture, at a time insecurity ‘in the food basket of the nation had failed to reduce.