Your Time Is Up, Prepare Your Handover – Atiku Tells Tinubu

Former Vice President of Nigeria and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has predicted a victory for himself in the 2027 election.

According to him, President Bola Tinubu should start preparing his handover notes because he would take over from him after the elections.

The ADC candidate, in a statement on Friday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, accused Tinubu of using Nigeria for economic experiment since assuming office in 2023.

He lamented the economic policies of the Tinubu administration, particularly the fuel subsidy removal, saying it has plunged several Nigerians into deeper poverty.

Naija News reports that Atiku also criticised the administration’s latest pledge to work with governors on reducing public transport fares, saying it’s a little too late.

“President Tinubu, Nigerians have paid enough for your economic experiment. Too little. Too inadequate. Too late. Your time is up. Prepare your handover. We are coming to make life affordable again,” he said.

Atiku said the attempt by the Tinubu government to replace petrol with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is a policy failure as only about 120,000 vehicles out of 14 million vehicles on Nigerian roads have been converted to CNG in more than three years.

“If Tinubu’s grand strategy for cushioning the consequences of his reckless and poorly thought-out subsidy removal is CNG conversion, then the admission that only about 120,000 vehicles have been converted in more than three years is not an achievement. It is an advertisement of policy failure.

“Against widely cited estimates of roughly 14 million vehicles on Nigerian roads, 120,000 conversions amount to less than one per cent. That is the government’s own number. That is Tinubu marking his own examination script.

“If a student returned less than one per cent in his core subject, WAEC would not call it progress. No university would call it excellent performance. Yet Tinubu wants Nigerians to reward the political equivalent of that catastrophic score with another four years. The truth is simple: Nigeria cannot afford another four years of monumental failure”, he said.

Atiku said the recent declaration by the Tinubu government that cheaper fuel should translate to cheaper fares was an admission of failure on a policy that has lasted over three years.

He noted that the subsidy removal done without a credible cushioning framework had driven up transport costs, food prices and the cost of doing business over more than three years, even as Nigerians pleaded for relief.

The ADC candidate, however, promised to reverse the trend by replacing it with a production-based subsidy to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, an idea it said the government once ridiculed but now appears to be borrowing from.

“Now that elections are approaching, and Nigerians are rallying behind Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s proposal for a production-based subsidy to immediately tackle the cost-of-living crisis created by Tinubu, the same government that ridiculed and criticised Atiku’s plan has suddenly discovered that Nigerians need cheaper transportation. This is medicine after death. You cannot break a man’s leg, abandon him in pain for three and a half years, then return with crutches and demand applause for compassion.

“We will support domestic refining. We will track every barrel. We will cap the cost. We will reduce energy costs. And we will ensure that money and relief reaches the commuter, farmer, worker, trader and small business owner-not politically connected middlemen. That is the difference between Tinubu and Atiku: Tinubu manufactures hardship and distributes palliatives. Atiku will attack hardship at its source.

“So what exactly has Tinubu solved if the bus becomes cheaper to operate but the passenger has become too poor to enter it? A cheaper bus without an affordable passenger is not economic recovery,” he said.