The Presidency and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar have expressed divergent views over the economic policies of President Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 poll, fired the first salvo on Sunday when he accused Tinubu’s administration of allegedly indulging in “trial-and-error economic policies,” saying that he would have acted differently if given the mandate.
But the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, has berated Atiku for lack of vision, saying that if he had won the election, Atiku would have plunged Nigeria into a worse situation or run a regime of cronyism.
Atiku further criticised the administration of Tinubu, saying that the current administration is undertaking a “palliative economy”, something his administration would not have done.
He also accused Tinubu of unleashing reforms to determine an appropriate exchange rate, cost-reflective electricity tariff, and petrol price at one and the same time, saying that the development “is certainly an overkill”.
He added that while he had advocated for subsidy removal, his administration would have gone for a gradual removal as was done in other countries like Malaysia (2022) and Indonesia (2022 -2023).
Atiku also said his journey of reforms would have benefited from more adequate preparations, more sufficient diagnostic assessment of the country’s conditions, more consultations with key stakeholders and better ideas for the final destination.
He further said his administration would have launched an economic stimulus fund (ESF), with an initial investment capacity of approximately $10billion to support MSMEs across all economic sectors.
Atiku said, “We would have been guided by my robust reform agenda as encapsulated in ‘My Covenant with Nigerians’, my policy document that sought to, among others, protect our fragile economy against much deeper crisis by preventing business collapse; our document had spelt out policies that were consistent and coherent.
“We would have been more strategic in our response to reform fallout. We would not over-estimate the efficacy of the reform measures or underestimate the potential costs of reforms,” Atiku added.
But Onanuga has faulted the claims of Atiku, saying there is no need for Atiku to speak because his ideas, “which lacked details” were rejected by Nigerians in the 2023 poll.
The presidential spokesman said, “ Atiku 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
“ As vice president, Atiku supervised a questionable privatisation programme. 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.
“Despite the futile attempt to hoodwink Nigerians again in his statement, it is gratifying that the former Vice President could not repudiate the economic reforms pursued by the Tinubu administration because they are the right things to do.
“His advocacy for a gradualist approach only showed that he was not in tune with the enormity of problems inherited by President Tinubu.
“It is so easy to paint a flowery to-do list. It is expected of an election loser. President Tinubu met a country facing several grave challenges. Fuel subsidies were siphoning away enormous resources we could ill afford, and there was criminal arbitrage in the forex market.
“No leader worth his name will allow these two economic disorders to persist without moving to end them surgically,” Onanuga added.
