Former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar says Nigeria is not working one year after President Bola Tinubu ascended to power.
Atiku described Tinubu’s one year as a cocktail of trial-and-error economic policies.
The former Vice President recalled that Tinubu raised the hopes of Nigerians with his pledge to “remodel our economy to bring about growth and development through job creation, food security and an end of extreme poverty.”
Since then, Tinubu has also spoken about growing the economy at double-digit rates to US$1 trillion in six years, ending misery, and bringing immediate relief to Nigeria’s cost-of-living crisis.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Atiku said Nigerians would have on listening to Tinubu’s assurance breathed a sigh of relief after their experience with ex-President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years of economic misadventure.
“Tinubu laid out no plans for the ‘remodeling’ of the economy but soon embarked on a cocktail of policies to achieve it.
“In May 2023, he eliminated PMS subsidies, and a month later, the CBN implemented a new foreign exchange policy that unified the multiple official FX windows into a single official market.
“More policies followed in rapid succession: the tightening of monetary policy to reduce Naira liquidity, a hike in monetary policy rates, the introduction of cost-reflective electricity tariff, and a cybersecurity tax.
“Predictably, 12 months on, Tinubu’s pledge of growing the economy and ending misery remains unfulfilled. His actions or inactions have significantly worsened Nigeria’s macroeconomic stability.
“Nigeria remains a struggling economy and is more fragile today than it was a year ago. Indeed, all the economic ills – joblessness, poverty, and misery – which defined the Buhari-led administration have only exacerbated.
“Africa’s leading economy has slipped to the 4th position lagging behind Algeria, Egypt, and South Africa. Citizens’ hopes have been dashed (and not renewed contrary to the propaganda of the administration) as Nigeria’s economic woes have multiplied,” he said.
