Former VP Atiku Abubakar and President Bola Tinubu
The media office of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic policies, saying they have worsened poverty and hardship across the country.
The criticism followed comments by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Daniel Bwala, during an interview on Channels Television, which Atiku’s media aide, Paul Ibe, said amounted to an admission that the administration’s reforms had pushed more Nigerians into poverty.
In a statement, Ibe described Bwala’s remarks as “revealing” and “an indictment of an administration that appears more concerned with defending its policies than protecting the people those policies are supposed to serve.”
He said, “Let me remind @BwalaDaniel of a fundamental principle of governance: policies are made for man, not man for policies.”
According to him, “The purpose of economic reform is to improve human welfare, not to impoverish citizens and then celebrate their suffering as a necessary sacrifice.”
Ibe argued that if the government’s policies had “pushed more Nigerians into poverty, destroyed purchasing power, increased the cost of food, transportation and electricity, and undermined businesses, then those policies deserve urgent review, not endless propaganda.”
He said this was why Atiku had proposed a review of the Tinubu administration’s approach to petrol subsidy and electricity pricing, including what he described as “a transparent, production-based subsidy framework that can reduce energy costs and provide relief to households and businesses.”
The Atiku aide further stated, “Reform must have a human face. Economic policies should serve the people, not sacrifice the people on the altar of economic theories.”
Questioning the impact of the reforms, he asked, “Bwala speaks of progress. But progress for whom? The government collecting more revenue or the Nigerian struggling to feed a family, pay electricity bills and keep a business alive?”
He added, “Tinubu cannot claim economic success while admitting that his policies have made more Nigerians poor. The ultimate measure of good governance is not how stubbornly a government defends its policies, but how positively those policies transform the lives of its citizens.”
Ibe also declared, “Nigerians are not laboratory rats for Tinubu’s economic experiments. They deserve relief, dignity and a better life which a Tinubu’s second term cannot guarantee. Indeed, Tinubu is primed to be an undertaker if handed a return mandate.”
The statement comes amid continued public debate over the Federal Government’s economic reforms, including the removal of petrol subsidy and changes in the foreign exchange market, policies the Tinubu administration says are necessary to stabilise the economy but which many Nigerians say have increased the cost of living.
