Atiku would have plunged Nigeria into worse situation – Presidency

The presidency has hit back at former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, saying he would have plunged Nigeria into a worse situation as the president.

The presidency said this on Monday morning in a statement signed by President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga in response to Atiku’s criticism of the current administration which has plunged Nigeria into an economic meltdown.

“We have just read a statement credited to former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in which he tried to discredit President Bola Tinubu’s economic reform programmes while pushing his untested agenda as a better alternative,” Onanuga said.

“First, Alhaji Atiku’s ideas which lacked details were rejected by Nigerians in the 2023 poll. If he had won the election, we believe he would have plunged Nigeria into a worse situation or run a regime of cronyism.

“Abubakar lost the election partly because he vowed to sell the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and other assets to his friends.”

Onanuga pointed out that 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.

He said as vice president, Atiku supervised a questionable privatisation programme which saw him and his boss, Obasanjo demonstrate a lack of faith in Nigeria’s educational system and both went to establish their universities while they allowed the nation’s to flounder.

Onanuga stated that talk is cheap as it makes it 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.

He added that 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.

Tinubu’s media aide stated that Atiku’s advocacy for a gradualist approach only showed that he was not in tune with the enormity of problems inherited by the president.

“It is so easy to paint a flowery to-do list. It is expected of an election loser,” Onanuga stated further to hit back at Atiku.

“President Tinubu met a country facing several grave challenges. Fuel subsidies were siphoning away enormous resources we could ill afford and there was criminal arbitrage in the forex market.

“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.”

Onanuga said while Atiku calls for empathy and a human face to reforms, Tinubu has no problem with this as it resonates well with his administration’s focus.

He added that President Tinubu has consistently emphasised the need for compassion and protection of the most vulnerable.

According to Onanuga, Tinubu’s administration has prioritised social safety nets and targeted support for those affected by the recent economic transitions.

Former Vice President, Atiku had earlier revealed what President Tinubu needs to do to differently to transform Nigeria.

Amid the suffering faced by common Nigerians, especially due to the rise in the prices of food items caused by the removal of fuel subsidy by Tinubu, Atiku revealed the steps he would have taken to move the country forward.

In a post on his official X account on Sunday, Atiku said he has been inundated with inquiries of what he would have done differently if he were at the helm of affairs of Nigeria.

“I am not the president, Tinubu is. The focus should be on him and not on me or any other. I believe that such inquiries distract from the critical questions of what President Bola Tinubu needs to do to save Nigerians from the excruciating pains arising from his trial-and-error economic policies,” he wrote.

“However, I understand and appreciate the challenges faced by citizens in seeking alternatives to what is not working for them. 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.”

Atiku said in general, he would have planned better and more robustly as his journey of reforms would have benefited from more 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 his administration as the president would have been guided by his robust reform agenda as encapsulated in ‘My Covenant With Nigerians’, his policy document that sought to, among others, protect the country’s fragile economy against much deeper crisis by preventing business collapse, with his document having spelt out policies that were consistent and coherent.

“We would have sequenced my reforms to achieve fiscal and monetary congruence. 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,” he stated.

“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.”

To avert the ensuing problems currently facing the citizens, Atiku said his administration would have been more strategic in its response to reform fallout, adding that they would not over-estimate the efficacy of the reform measures or underestimate the potential costs of reforms.

He said he would have recognised that reforms could sometimes fail, as a result, he would not underestimate the numerous delivery challenges, including the weaknesses of Nigeria’s institutions, and would work assiduously to correct the same.

Atiku explained that he would, as a responsible leader, pause, reflect, and where necessary, review implementation, stating that he would have led by example.

According to him, any fiscal reform to improve liquidity and the management of the nation’s fiscal resources must first eliminate revenue leakages arising from governance, including the cost of running the government and the government procurement process.

He pointed out that he and the members of his administration would not have lived in luxury while the citizens wallow in misery, explaining that they would have communicated more effectively with the people, with civility, tact, and diplomacy.

Transparent communication with the public, according to Atiku, is essential to build public trust, which in turn is important to ensure that the public understands what the government is doing.

He added that he and the members of his team would have consulted more with all stakeholders to learn, negotiate, adapt, and modify, among other policy goals while they would have demonstrated more empathy, adding that his reforms would have worn a human face.

To make things work in Nigeria, Atiku said that he would have been more strategic in the design and implementation of reform fallout mitigating measures.

“I would not run a ‘palliative economy’ yet, we would have robust social protection programme that will offer genuine support to the poor and vulnerable and provide immediate comfort and security to enable them to navigate the stormy seas,” he said.