Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu of seeking a second term while sending governors, ministers and defectors to defend the hardship Nigerians have endured over the past three and a half years, insisting that the President must personally face the people and account for his record.
In a statement issued on Thursday by Phrank Shaibu, Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Atiku said Tinubu’s suggestion that he may miss campaign rallies because Nigeria needs his attention raises a pressing question.
“Where was that urgency when Nigerians pleaded for relief?” Atiku asked. He said that in three and a half years in office, families have been forced to cut meals, postpone medical care and watch their earnings lose value before they get home.
According to him, Tinubu must face Nigerians and account for his first term before asking for another mandate.
He challenged the President to explain to a mother what his government has done to make food affordable, to tell pensioners why they cannot afford their medicines, and to tell young Nigerians why years of study and hard work have not brought them decent jobs.
Atiku also took aim at the President’s remark that American creditors cannot wait. “Nigerians cannot wait either,” he said, noting that citizens have bills to pay, children to feed and lives to rebuild.
He argued that they deserve a President who treats their suffering with the same urgency he gives creditors and investors.
The former Vice President said Tinubu was instead assembling a crowd of politicians to speak for him “He can fill every campaign stage in Nigeria.
He cannot fill an empty pot with surrogates,” he said, adding that no politician can be sent into a market to persuade prices to fall.
Atiku stressed that members of the President’s campaign council did not receive the mandate in 2023, but Tinubu did.
“He made the promises. He took the decisions. He must face the questions,” he said.
He concluded that while Nigerians will listen to the surrogates, they will remember what they have lived through when they vote.
“No crowd of politicians can stand between Tinubu and his record,” he said.
