‘Prepare your handover’, Atiku tells Tinubu over fuel, transport crisis

ABUJA: Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has issued an ultimatum to President Bola Tinubu, declaring that his time in office is up and demanding he begins preparing his hand over notes ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

The charge was contained in a statement issued by Atiku’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, in Friday in Abuja.

Atiku who is the Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC also tore into the administration’s latest pledge to work with governors on reducing public transport fares.

He accused the Federal Government of using a belated transport fare promise to paper over a cost-of-living crisis it created through the removal of fuel subsidy without adequate cushioning.

“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.

Accordimg to him, the administration’s own data on Compressed Natural Gas CNG conversions amounts to a self-authored scorecard of failure, adding that only about 120,000 vehicles 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 also faulted Tinubu’s recent declaration that cheaper fuel should translate to cheaper fares, describing the statement as an inadvertent admission that government policy has been disconnected from the daily struggles of ordinary Nigerians.

He recalled that the removal of subsidy 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.

According to him, Nigerians have been rallying behind his proposal for 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.