Nigeria’s former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies, accusing the administration of worsening hardship while presenting increased government revenues as evidence of economic progress.
Atiku, in a statement issued by his spokesman, Phrank Shaibu, also rejected the Presidency’s criticism of his proposed intervention in the petroleum sector, arguing that economic policies must be adjusted to reflect prevailing conditions.
The statement described Tinubu’s response to Atiku’s proposal as evidence of an administration that, according to the former vice president, had failed to adequately address the consequences of fuel subsidy removal, naira depreciation and rising living costs.
Mr Shaibu said it was contradictory for the administration to claim economic success based on increased Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC, revenues while Nigerians continued to face declining purchasing power and rising costs.
“If economic ignorance had a presidential seal, Tinubu and his family would be its official logo. Here is an administration that detonated simultaneous fuel-price, exchange-rate and cost-of-living shocks across a fragile economy, watched millions become poorer, and now struts around Abuja demanding applause for the wreckage,” he said.
He added: “That is not reform. It is economic arson followed by propaganda about the ashes.”
According to Mr Atiku, increased FAAC allocations to states should not be regarded as an achievement if they are accompanied by worsening living conditions for citizens.
“Tinubu’s courtiers may clap because FAAC allocations have increased, but hungry Nigerians cannot boil FAAC figures for dinner. Businesses cannot power factories with presidential speeches, workers cannot pay transport fares with macroeconomic grammar, and parents cannot settle school fees with statistics manufactured for State House applause,” the statement said.
Mr Atiku argued that a government could not claim to be reforming the economy if its revenues were rising while citizens’ purchasing power was falling.
“A government that grows richer while its citizens grow poorer is not reforming an economy. It is extracting from its people,” he said.
The former vice president also defended his proposed petroleum-sector intervention, saying it was not a plan to restore the previous subsidy regime but a targeted mechanism designed to support domestic production.
According to him, the proposal involves a capped, budgeted, time-bound and independently audited production-support mechanism tied to domestic production and designed to prevent arbitrage.
“Economic prescriptions respond to prevailing conditions. Even a first-year economics student understands ceteris paribus — other things being equal. But other things are no longer equal in Tinubu’s Nigeria,” he said.
Mr Atiku said the removal of petrol subsidy had triggered increases in fuel, transportation and production costs, while the naira’s depreciation and rising food prices had further weakened household purchasing power.
“Those three words were not economic policy. They were economic vandalism by presidential fiat,” he said, referring to Tinubu’s declaration that “subsidy is gone”.
He argued that his proposal should therefore be judged against the economic conditions created by the administration’s policies rather than against circumstances that existed before the subsidy removal.
“That is not inconsistency. That is economics. Only incompetence insists on yesterday’s prescription after today’s conditions have changed,” Atiku said.
The former vice president also questioned the claim that petroleum subsidy had been completely eliminated, citing what he described as energy-security costs and petroleum under-recoveries contained in NNPC’s audited accounts.
“Tinubu told Nigerians subsidy was dead. Yet NNPC’s audited accounts reportedly contain approximately N17.5 trillion in energy-security costs and petroleum under-recoveries, including about N7.13 trillion classified as Energy Security and N8.67 trillion in under-recoveries.
“So what exactly did Tinubu remove? If subsidy is dead, why are under-recoveries alive? If corruption was eliminated, why has opacity survived?” he asked.
Mr Atiku further criticised the argument that higher FAAC allocations represented one of the major benefits of subsidy removal, saying increased allocations should not come at the expense of household purchasing power.
“You do not build a federation by impoverishing citizens so that Abuja can send bigger cheques to governors. That is robbing households to subsidise governments,” he said.
He argued that states should instead develop productive economies, attract investment, broaden their tax bases and exploit their comparative advantages rather than become increasingly dependent on federal allocations.
“That is not fiscal federalism. It is fiscal sedation and rascality,” Atiku said.
He also challenged the Federal Government to provide explanations for what he described as approximately N30 trillion in Federation Account revenues, deductions, savings and transfers, as well as N12.8 trillion allocated to the Service-Wide Vote in the 2026 budget.
“If Tinubu can mobilise an army of propagandists to attack Atiku within hours, surely he can find one accountant to explain his books,” he said.
Atiku maintained that increased government revenues alone should not be the measure of economic success, arguing that the ultimate test should be whether economic policies improve citizens’ living standards.
“Economic reform is not measured by how fat government accounts become while citizens grow poorer. An economy exists to serve human beings, not family and friends,” he said.
He concluded by accusing the administration of imposing excessive economic hardship on Nigerians and warned against what he described as another four years of the same economic policies.
“The real ignorance is believing suffering is economic policy. Tinubu removed the subsidy from Nigerians’ pockets, but he is yet to remove the questions from his books.
“Nigerians have paid enough for Tinubunomics. They should not be sentenced to another four years of the bitter experiment,” Mr Atiku said.
