Atiku: Tinubu’s Economic Policies Uninformed, Creating Pains, Despair

*Your criticism not grounded in logic, presidency fires back

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu of dashing hopes, creating pains, and causing despair among Nigerians with his administration’s economic policies.

In a statement late Sunday, Atiku said Tinubu’s poor response to the country’s challenges was setting the stage for a prolonged and deeper economic crisis.
But Tinubu pushed back, accusing Atiku of making groundless allegations and raising issues divorced from the realities of the moment.

Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last general election, said the performance of the economy had in recent weeks and months been the subject of intense discourse among Nigerians at home and abroad.

According to Atiku, Tinubu’s economic policies, drawn from the so-called “Renewed Hope Agenda”, are causing more agony in the land.
He said the private sector was shrinking by the day, as small businesses were being emasculated and multinational companies were confused and weary of the economy, and leaving Nigeria in droves.

Atiku stated, “The intense cost of living pressures have created more misery for the poor in towns and villages. There is hunger in the land, as basic commodities, including bread, are becoming out of reach for average Nigerians.
“His 2024 budget is a business-as-usual exercise, bereft of concrete ideas and actions that would support Nigeria’s journey toward economic transformation – consisting mainly of wasteful expenditures to cater to a bloated federal government.

“Budget 2024 will not facilitate growth and cannot empower our citizens to earn a living and live a decent life.”
Atiku maintained that Tinubu had shown no capacity to deal with the adverse and disastrous effect of the new subsidy regime on the people and businesses, and the new foreign exchange policy, which provides for a free-floating exchange rate.

He said regarding Tinubu, “His initiatives are literally uninformed, arbitrary, and chaotic.  BAT’s palliatives are too mean, pitiable, and contemptuous of the poor. He seems genuinely lost, bewildered, and overwhelmed.”

To mask their failures, the former vice president said, Tinubu and his political appointees were busy blaming his predecessor in office, fellow All Progressives Congress (APC) member, ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, for bequeathing a “dead” economy.
He said this was a familiar game popularised by Buhari while in office, arguing that it reinforced what was already known: that the president came into office unprepared.

“Tinubu and his economic management team must swallow their pride, admit their missteps and failures, and follow those who know the terrain,” Atiku said. “They must act fast before the economy sinks deeper into the abyss,” he added.

However, the presidency, in a statement by Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, said the criticism of Tinubu’s policies by Atiku in recent times was fast turning the former number two citizen of the country into opposition-in-chief to the president.

The presidency submitted that Nigerians and the international community believed in the ability of the president to deliver progress and prosperity.
The statement said, “Nigerians can easily see through the hypocrisy of Alhaji Atiku, who in accusing President Tinubu of poor response to the nation’s challenges and causing pains and despair, didn’t offer any better policy options in his run for the presidency different from the economic reform agenda being pursued by President Tinubu.

“All the major candidates agreed that the fuel subsidy regime, which had become an albatross on the economy, must end. They all agreed that the multiple exchange rates must be fixed. Where President Tinubu and Atiku differed was in selling NNPC Limited and other national assets.
“Atiku went for this so he could sell these important national assets to his friends and cronies.

“President Tinubu removed the subsidy from day one and announced moves to harmonise the exchange rates. Since then, he and his economic team have been working vigorously to harmonise the rates and also end the rampant and criminal arbitrage that the multiple windows allowed.”
According to Onanuga, Tinubu has acknowledged on different occasions that the reforms his government is implementing will cause immediate pains, but will usher in an era of prosperity in the medium and long terms.

He stated, “Atiku’s claims that the private sector is shrinking and that multinational companies are leaving our country in ‘droves’ are not grounded on facts.
“His claim that the government’s policies have created intense cost of living pressures are also not grounded on facts, as recent comparative cost of living indices show that Nigerians still enjoy the lowest cost of living in Africa.

“Instead of mouthing platitudes every time in a bid to earn cheap political mileage, Alhaji Atiku, who presumes himself as the leader of opposition, should tell Nigerians what he would have done better if he had been elected president.”
The presidency urged Atiku to be honest enoug h to admit that Tinubu inherited a weak economy, which, to all intents and purposes, and to ensure the survival of the country, needed a complete overhaul.

Confronted with a grim economic reality, the statement said Tinubu faced a difficult choice of balancing the political and economic costs of reforms against the risks of economic recession. It emphasised that his government chose the former, to keep the economy afloat and set it back on the path of growth and prosperity.