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From Ndubuisi Orji , Abuja
African Democratic Congress ( ADC) 2027 Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar has dismissed President Bola Tinubu’s latest promise to work with governors to reduce public transport fares as a desperate and belated response to a cost-of-living crisis created by his own government.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the Federal Government’s CNG conversion figures as a damning reflection of the Tinubu administration’s performance.
The former Vice President stated that it is obvious that the government has unwittingly published its own scorecard of failure. Atiku said the government’s celebration of 120,000 conversions in a country with millions of vehicles is the mathematical equivalent of celebrating a bucket of water while the house is still burning.
He noted that President Tinubu’s declaration that “cheaper fuel should result in cheaper fares” is equally a confession that the administration’s energy policy has been fundamentally disconnected from the daily survival of Nigerians.
According to him, “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.”
“For more than three years, Nigerians begged this government for relief. Tinubu removed subsidy without a credible cushioning framework, watched transport costs explode, watched food prices follow, watched businesses suffocate under crushing energy costs, and repeatedly told Nigerians that their suffering was the unavoidable price of reform.
“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. Tinubu created the transport crisis; CNG cannot now be packaged as heroism.”
The ADC candidate stated that while expansion of CNG conversion centers may be desirable, an alternative fuel cannot be presented as the solution to a purchasing-power crisis.
“CNG can make a converted bus cheaper to operate. It cannot make a poor Nigerian richer. That distinction demolishes the propaganda. Go to the motor parks. Nigerians are travelling less because they cannot afford to travel. Workers calculate whether transport to work will swallow their wages. Traders are buying less because transportation is eating into their capital. Students struggle with daily fares. Farmers pay heavily to move food from farms to markets.
“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.
