Former Vice-President and African Democratic Congress Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar’s response to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Kaduna campaign speech has shifted the focus of the All Progressive Congress flag-off from spectacle to accountability.
Tinubu told supporters that the opposition created hunger and poverty and that his administration was working to eradicate them while Atiku’s campaign council rejected that explanation as an attempt to avoid responsibility for the hardship Nigerians are experiencing under the government now in office.
That is the central question raised by the Kaduna campaign: when a government seeks a second term, should voters judge it mainly by the problems it inherited or by the conditions created and managed during its own tenure?
The answer cannot be found in slogans alone. It must be tested against the economy, public spending, security and the delivery of promised reforms.
Atiku’s case
Atiku’s argument is straightforward. The APC has governed Nigeria continuously at the federal level since 2015, and Bola Tinubu has been president since May 2023. Therefore, the ruling party cannot blame opposition for every consequence of policies implemented by its own administration.
In the statement supplied for this report, Atiku’s campaign said the government had “lit the fire of hardship” through its policies and could not blame its
neighbours for the smoke.
The opposition’s strongest point is that the administration owns the consequences of its major decisions. Tinubu removed the petrol subsidy and changed the foreign-exchange regime early in his presidency.
The government has defended both moves as necessary reforms intended to end waste, corruption and market distortions. But necessity does not
cancel accountability.
Citizens are entitled to ask how quickly relief would come, who would bear the cost during the transition and what safeguards would protect poor households.
Atiku also challenged the president to answer for inflation, naira’s depreciation, insecurity and the broader rise in poverty. These are politically powerful issues because they are experienced directly by households rather than encountered as abstract economic indicators.
A family paying more for food, transport, medicine or school fees is unlikely to
be persuaded simply by being told that the previous system was unsustainable.
Yet Atiku’s critique also has a weakness. Saying that the APC is responsible for hardship does not by itself establish that an opposition govt would resolve it.
The ADC and other opposition forces would need to present costed proposals on subsidies, exchange- rate management, debt, food production, security and social protection.
Criticism is necessary in a democracy, but it is not a substitute for a credible governing plan.
The APC’s answer
At the Kaduna Township Stadium, Tinubu defended the record and the direction of his administration. He said opposition created hunger and poverty and that his
govt was trying to eliminate them.
The President promised prosperity, continuity and progress if re-elected, while arguing that subsidy removal had ended corruption, falsified invoices and fuel smuggling associated with the old arrangement.
The APC’s argument is that Tinubu inherited deep fiscal and structural problems and chose to confront them rather than postpone them. That case deserves consideration.
A government that continues an expensive and opaque subsidy regime may preserve short- term calm while worsening public finances.
Likewise, a unified foreign-exchange market may be economically rational even when the immediate adjustment causes pain. But the APC’s explanation cannot end with inheritance.
The government must show what
its reforms have achieved, who has benefited and why the transition has taken the form it has.
It must also explain whether relief programmes have reached vulnerable citizens at a scale large enough to offset the shock. The party’s claim that reform was necessary is not the same as proof that it was well executed.
Vice-President Kashim Shettima and campaign Director-General Abdul’aziz Yari broadened the defence to education, infrastructure, agriculture, healthcare and social programmes.
Shettima cited the Federal University of Applied Sciences, the transition of the Federal University of Education, Zaria, vocational institutes in Rigachikun, Soba and Samaru, and major road, rail and gas projects.
He said more than 4,000 people had
graduated from the vocational institutes. Yari said the APC would campaign on its record rather than promises. Those claims should now be matched with public project records, beneficiary lists, completion dates and evidence of continuing impact.
What the data says
Atiku’s poverty argument is supported by a serious external benchmark, although the figures require precise interpretation.
The World Bank’s October 2026 Nigeria Poverty and Equity Brief says the share of Nigerians below the national poverty line rose from 40.1 per cent in 2019 to 56.2 per cent in 2023 and is estimated at 63 per cent in 2026.
It also reports rising multidimensional poverty, which includes access to basic services and infrastructure.
The 63 per cent figure is a projection, not a fresh nationwide household survey, but it is still a warning that the reform programme has not yet produced broad improvements in living standards.
The poverty data does not prove that every increase was caused by Tinubu’s policies. Economic hardship reflects several forces, including earlier fiscal weaknesses, insecurity, exchange-rate conditions, global prices, food supply and climate pressures.
It does, however, make it difficult for the ruling party to dismiss hardship as an opposition invention. The administration may not have created every underlying problem, but it is responsible for reducing the burden during its term.
Atiku’s statement also raised questions about energy-security spending and NNPC finances.
TheCable reported that NNPC’s 2025 audited financial report recorded N11.2 trillion in costs incurred to protect oil and gas assets on behalf of the federal government.
NNPC said the amount was recoverable from the federation under an approved framework. The report also said no new energy-security expense was recognised in 2025, compared with N7.13 trillion in the previous year, while N8.9 trillion in energy-security receivables carried over from 2024 was reconciled in 2025.
These figures do not establish theft or
misuse, but they do justify demands for clearer disclosures on contracts, beneficiaries, security arrangements, recoveries and value delivered.
The opposition’s reference to a $12.4 billion gap in Nigeria’s external accounts also needs careful handling. The Finance Ministry said the amount was a negative “net errors and omissions” residual in the balance of payments, not money proven missing or stolen.
It attributed the residual to data gaps, delayed oil payments, informal remittances, cross- border trade and other transactions recorded at different times.
The ministry said Nigeria had a $12 billion current-account surplus in the first half of 2026 and that reserves rose from $45.5 billion at the end of 2025 to $53.8 billion by the end of August.
The figure deserves transparent investigation and improved accounting, but it should not be presented as proof of a missing $12.4 billion without further evidence.
Kaduna as the test case
Atiku’s challenge becomes more concrete in Kaduna, where the APC used the rally to claim federal and state performance.
Governor Uba Sani said Tinubu had supported the state in infrastructure, agriculture, education and security.
He cited the Kaduna–Birnin Gwari road, the Zaria–Funtua–Gusau–Birnin Gwari corridor and a proposed Kaduna
metropolitan rail project.
He also claimed that more than 300 schools and over 150 primary healthcare centres closed because of insecurity had reopened.
These claims require independent verification through project records, school and health-facility registers and evidence that services are functioning effectively.
Kaduna’s 2026 budget gives voters another basis for assessment. The state govt says its N985.9 billion budget allocates 70.9 per cent to capital expenditure, with 25 per cent each for education and infrastructure and rural transformation, 15 per cent for health
and 11.65 per cent for agriculture and food security.
It also includes N100 million for each
ward and reports no new borrowing. These allocations are important commitments, but allocation is not implementation.
The real questions are how much was released, what was completed and whether citizens saw measurable improvement.
The APC’s electoral challenge is equally clear. Stears’ compilation of 2023 presidential results, based on INEC’s result-viewing platform and local- govt collation centres, recorded the PDP ahead in Kaduna with 445,671 votes, followed by APC with 321,691, Labour with 253,207 and NNPP with 72,204.
Stears cautions that the figures are provisional collation data rather than a substitute for the final declaration. Even with that qualification, Kaduna cannot be treated as an automatic APC victory.
The rally showed mobilisation strength, but the 2023 result shows that many voters remain open to alternatives.
The accountability standard
Atiku is right that a government seeking another term must answer for the lives people are living.
It is not persuasive to tell citizens that hardship is merely the work of political opponents when poverty estimates are worsening and the government itself acknowledges that major economic changes were made during its tenure.
The administration must own both the gains it claims and the costs its policies have imposed. However, accountability must apply to the opposition as well.
Atiku’s statement identifies genuine public concerns, but it offers no complete alternative in the material supplied.
If the ADC proposes to restore or modify the petrol subsidy, it must explain how it would finance that decision, prevent the old leakages and protect investment in health, education and infrastructure.
If it promises a different currency policy, it must explain how it would rebuild confidence without creating another destabilising adjustment. If it promises better security, it must set out resources, institutions and measurable targets required.
The Kaduna flag-off was therefore more than a party rally. It was the first major exchange in a contest over responsibility. Tinubu says the opposition created the crisis and that the APC is solving it.
Atiku says the APC has governed long enough to own the result. The available
evidence does not support the most absolute version of either claim.
Nigeria’s problems predate Tinubu, but the current administration is responsible for the choices it has made and the relief it has failed to deliver quickly enough.
The fairest editorial conclusion is that Atiku has identified the APC’s most serious vulnerability, but not yet supplied a complete remedy.
The ruling party has a legitimate.case that difficult reforms were necessary, but not a licence to dismiss the hardship those reforms intensified.
Voters should demand verifiable delivery records from the APC and a costed governing programme from opposition. Kaduna’s crowd may show who can
organise a rally. Only the electorate can decide who has earned the right to govern.