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The Presidency said if Atiku had won, he would have plunged Nigeria into a worse situation or established a regime of cronyism.
The Presidency has attributed former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s loss in the 2023 presidential election to his commitment to selling the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other state assets to his friends.
The Presidency in a statement issued on Monday by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser, Information and Strategy to President Bola Tinubu, said Nigerians reportedly have not forgotten this pledge, nor would they be reassured by Atiku’s track record when he oversaw the economy during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s first term from 1999 to 2003.
It further noted that Atiku’s proposals, deemed lacking in detail, were decisively rejected by voters in the last election.
The Presidency said if Atiku had won, he would have plunged Nigeria into a worse situation or established a regime of cronyism.
It said Atiku lost the election partly because he vowed to sell the NNPC and other assets to his friends. It was highlighted that “Nigerians have not forgotten this, nor would they be comforted by Atiku’s antecedents when he ran the economy.”
The Presidency said during his tenure as Vice President, Atiku supervised a questionable privatisation programme and displayed a lack of faith in the educational system, opting to establish private universities while neglecting public institutions.
The Presidency also asserted that talk is cheap, emphasising that it is easy to criticise a rival’s programmes without acknowledging the positive outcomes resulting from the current government’s economic reforms.
The statement reads in part, “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.
“First, Alhaji Atiku’s ideas, which lacked details, were rejected by Nigerians in the 2023 poll.
“Abubakar lost the election partly because he vowed to sell the NNPC and other assets to his friends. 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 and his boss demonstrated a lack of faith in our educational system, and both went to establish their universities while they allowed ours to flounder.
“Talk is cheap. It is 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.”
