The former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar on X has advised the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take from his ideas on how to save Nigerians from what he called “excruciating pains” arising from the “President’s trial-and -error economic policies”.
According to him, “I hope Tinubu and members of his administration are humble enough to borrow one or two things from our ideas in the interest of the Nigerian people. I would now go ahead and articulate some of our ideas that would have had the potential to transform our beloved country”.
Speaking in general, the ex-Vice President said he would have planned better and more robustly, adding that his journey of reforms would benefited from adequate preparations; more sufficient diagnostic assessment of the country’s conditions; more consultations with key stakeholders; and better ideas for the final destination.
He said unleashing reforms to determine an appropriate exchange rate, cost-reflective electricity tariff, and PMS price at one and the same time is certainly an overkill.
“Add CBN’s bullish money tightening spree. As importers of PMS and other petroleum products, removing subsidy on these products without a stable exchange rate would be counterproductive.
“We would have been more strategic in our response to reform fallout. We would not over-estimate the efficacy of the reform measures or underestimate the potential costs of reforms”, Atiku said. In response, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga in a statement said Alhaji Atiku’s ideas, which lacked details, were rejected by Nigerians in the 2023 poll. “Had Atiku won the election, we believe he would’ve plunged Nigeria into a worse situation or run a regime of cronyism.
“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. “Talk is cheap. 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.
“Despite the futile attempt to hoodwink Nigerians again in his statement, it is gratifying that the former Vice President could not repudiate the economic reforms pursued by the Tinubu administration because they are the right things to do.
“His advocacy for a gradualist approach only showed that he was not in tune with the enormity of problems inherited by President Tinubu. It is so easy to paint a flowery to-do list. It is expected of an election loser”.
Onanuga boldly said the President met a country facing several grave challenges, adding that fuel subsidies were siphoning away enormous resources the country could ill afford, and there was criminal arbitrage in the forex market. He said, “No leader worth his name will allow these two economic disorders to persist without moving to end them surgically.
“While advocating for gradual reforms may sound appealing, Tinubu took measures that should have been taken decades ago by Alhaji Abubakar and his boss when they had the opportunity.
“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. The administration has prioritised social safety nets and targeted support for those affected by recent economic transitions”, the Special Adviser said.
