Atiku rubbishes Tinubu’s policies, says hunger ravaging Nigeria�

Abubakar Atiku, a former Nigeria’s vice president, has rubbished the “renewed hope agenda” of incumbent President Bola Tinubu.

As he said, Tinubu’s handling of Nigeria’s economic challenges merely sets the “stage for a prolonged and deeper domestic economic crisis.”

“His economic policies, drawn from a so-called renewed hope agenda, are ironically dashing hopes, creating pain and causing despair,” Atiku said.

He added: “The private sector is shrinking … as small businesses are emasculated and as multinational companies leave Nigeria in droves.”

The serial presidential hopefuls declared that there is “HUNGER IN THE LAND as basic commodities, including BREAD, are becoming out of reach for average Nigerians.”

He also censured the 2024 budget as “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 stated emphatically.

Atiku, who lost to Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election, equally said that the latter “has shown no capacity to deal with the adverse and disastrous impact of the new subsidy regime on the people and businesses.”

He also deplored the single foreign exchange policy, saying it has led to free-floating exchange rate.”

Atiku said: “His initiatives are literally uninformed, arbitrary, and chaotic.

“He seems genuinely lost, bewildered, and overwhelmed.

“To mask their failures, BAT and his political appointees are busy blaming his predecessor in office for bequeathing a ‘dead’ economy.”

“Tinubu and his economic management team must swallow their pride, admit their missteps and failures, and follow those who know the terrain.

“They must act fast before the economy sinks deeper into the abyss.”

However, Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu’s special adviser on information and strategy, disagreed with the Peoples Democratic Party’s leader Atiku.

Onanuga, in his response, said that Atiku’s claims were an “uncharitable commentary on the state of the economy.”

“President Tinubu 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,” the advisor Onanuga said.

“President Tinubu is focused on solving our economic and security challenges,” he added.