The trio of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi and former Kaduna Governor Malam Nasir El-Rufai came under attack by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) over the allegation that President Bola Tinubu-led APC administration has weaponised poverty.
The three opposition leaders at the weekend during the 60th birthday ceremony of Amaechi in Abuja accused Tinubu of failing to eradicate the scourge of poverty in the last two years of his administration.
Describing the allegation as baseless, APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka in a statement in Abuja on Monday asked the trio to close their eyes in shame for their failure to achieve same feat during a quarter of a century in power.
Morka noted that instead of focusing on the birthday the trio, whom he described as “leading displaced rent-seekers”, they condescended into showcasing their frenzied desperation to grab power purely for their self aggrandizement.
According to Morka: “These three individuals have occupied Nigeria’s highest political offices between 1999 and 2023, either as Vice President, Governors, or Ministers, among other important positions. In all 24 years, the trio, individually or collectively, could not and did not eradicate poverty in their states or the country. They did not even attempt to address, let alone tackle, the structural challenges and distortions that stifled the economy and worsened poverty over the years.
“Rather, they reveled in mindless rent-seeking behavior, sold national assets to their cronies for mere pittance, engaged in corrupt and wasteful expenditures in their states, and relentlessly sponsored state violence against their own people.
“Take the case of Amaechi, the celebrant, who served for an unbroken total of 24 years – eight years as Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, eight years as Governor of Rivers State, and eight years as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. That’s about a quarter of a century of freeloading by Amaechi on state resources, with absolutely no record of attempting to combat poverty in his Rivers State or the country.
“When Amaechi declared, “I am hungry,” he must mean, and must be understood to mean, that he is hungry and desperate to return to his felt entitled dependency on state resources and patronage.
“That he is hungry barely two years out of office simply underscores the depth of the self-serving motivations of Amaechi and his coalition partners in their quest for power for selfish exploitation, and not for the interest of the people.”
The ruling party noted that the allegation by Amaechi and his cohorts was informed by the loss of grip on the economy which they have fleeced on for years.
“Accustomed to fleecing the economy, they are now compelled by Tinubu’s unprecedented reforms to adapt to a new reality where hard work, productivity, and innovation are rewarded. Their criticisms of President Tinubu’s reforms are decidedly self-serving, driven by a desperate quest for power to satiate their voracious rent-seeking appetite, which has long stifled and denied progress to the economy.
“On contrary, it was the failure of previous administrations, particularly 16 years of PDP administrations, to allow the Naira to find its real value that created the economic conditions of poverty that the present administration is now addressing.
“The erstwhile artificially overvalued Naira stifled local production, encouraged import dependency, and exacerbated poverty. Ironically, Atiku and Peter Obi, who are now vociferously criticizing President Tinubu’s policies, amassed their wealth from the very import-dependent system they are desperately trying to preserve.”
Going down the historical lane, APC recalled “Atiku, a former Custom Officer, and Obi, a successful importer, reaped enormous benefits from the old system. Their criticisms reek of special interest masqueraded as concern for the people. By allowing market forces to determine the Naira’s value, the administration is taking necessary bold steps to catalyze economic growth, incentivize investment, boost competitiveness, and alleviate poverty.”
The party commended President Tinubu’s resilience in demonstrating political will to tackle structural barriers to the country’s economic growth and development far more than any other President in Nigeria’s modern history.
