- He said if hunger doesn’t decimate Nigeria’s population Tinubu’s disastrous policies will
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, says the widespread hardship and hunger in the country are part of President Bola Tinubu’s calculated plan to impoverish Nigerians.
Atiku spoke on thursday through his Special Assistant on Public Communications to Mr. Phrank Shaibu.
In a statement in Abuja on Thursday, Shaibu likened Tinubu to a quack doctor who would kill his patient before the terminal disease that afflicted the patience did.
He explained that the effects of the woeful policies of President Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, is killing Nigerians even as there are no efforts to stem the tide.
Shaibu said, “The unprecedented hunger, poverty, and hardship in Nigeria are part of Tinubu’s ultimate plan to decimate Nigerians and pauperise them until they have no shred of dignity left.
“Tinubu is like a quack doctor trying to treat a cancerous patient. But the quack doctor is likely to kill the patient even faster than the cancer itself. This is the dire situation that Nigerians have found themselves in.
“Rather than get to work, he continues to blame his predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari, for handing him an empty treasury and a weak economy and the opposition for instigating mass protests. He talks as if Buhari was not a member of their diseased All Progressives Congress. He also forgets that his own kabukabu policies and its fallouts are what is instigating the mass protests across the country.”
The Atiku aide further noted that on Tinubu’s watch, poverty has reached an all-time high, with food inflation at 33%. He noted that the resulting effect would be a drop in unemployment, a rise in suicide levels, an increase in crime as well as a spike in the number of out-of-school children.
According to him, operators in the private sector of the economy continue to complain about how the Tinubu administration has led them into uncertain times, resulting in about 10 million small and micro businesses being closed.
He further stated that the free fall in the exchange rate and haphazard nature of government policies under Tinubu’s administration have made a rubbish of projections made by businesses during the last quarter of 2023.
Shaibu equally noted that in the past, garri and beans were considered food for the poor but even today, the poor cannot afford to buy beans which now costs N1,500 per mudu and with no prospects of a stop in the rising prices. SMA baby formula now costs N8,000 from N2,200.
He said, “Just over a year ago, a 50kg bag of rice was N47,000, but today it is N77,000. Beans used to be N36,000, but now it is N42,000. Bread was N700 for a loaf, but now it sells for N1,200. A single egg now costs N150. Imagine how much a crate costs? Even the agbado corn that Tinubu used in campaigning is also expected to go up by over 25%, according to AFEX.
“The tragedy now is that a vast majority of Nigerians whose means can’t afford decent meals, unfortunately contend with staples meant for animals.
“A recent BBC investigative report says that many people consume rejected rice gains by millers. The report specifically says that those rejected grains are purchased by fish farmers to feed their fisheries.
“In a similar context, a random visit to the Garki Market in Abuja will behold a large number of people queuing for maize shafts which they now turn into solid food. Normally, these shafts are sold to livestock farmers, but now Nigerians resort to these forms of staple as human food.”
To underscore how dire the situation has become, he quoted the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Lagos, as saying in December that the hospital recorded a 100% increase in the number of psychiatric patients admitted in the hospital.