Tinubu disconnected from citizens, says Atiku

From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has said that the claim by President Bola Tinubu that the quality of life is improving in Nigeria, shows there is a disconnect between government and the citizens it was elected to serve.

The former vice president noted that while it is not in doubt that President Tinubu inherited challenges, “no president is elected to inherit excuses.’

President Tinubu, at a meeting with the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), at the State House, had noted that “this government has stabilised, and there is prosperity on the horizon. Life is improving.”

Nonetheless, the former vice president, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, wondered whether: “The President was referring to another country or the Nigeria that millions of citizens endure every day.”

Atiku, who stressed that hope is not manufactured through speeches, but earned through purposeful leadership and policies that improve lives, and implored “President Tinubu to step outside the comfort of official briefings and carefully choreographed ceremonies and reconnect with the realities confronting ordinary Nigerians.”

According to him: “Mr. President says prosperity is on the horizon. Nigerians are asking: whose horizon? Certainly, it is not that of the market woman whose capital has been wiped out by inflation. Not that of the civil servant whose salary now expires before the month begins. Not that of the manufacturer struggling under crushing energy costs. Not that of the unemployed graduate who sees no future.

“ Certainly, it is not that of farming communities forced off their ancestral lands by terrorists and bandits, families mourning loved ones slaughtered in senseless attacks, or countless Nigerians who now live in daily fear of kidnappers who have turned human lives into commodities. And certainly not that of millions of households that have quietly reduced the number of meals they eat each day simply to survive.”

The ADC candidate added that after more than three years in office, the Tinubu administration could no longer govern by blaming its predecessors.

Atiku assured that an ADC administration, under his watch, ‘will invest aggressively in manufacturing, modern infrastructure, quality education, skills acquisition, agriculture, and export-driven industries to unlock the enormous productive capacity of our people.