 has strongly criticized former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, ex-Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi){kind=link}
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has strongly criticized former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, ex-Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi, and former Kaduna Governor Nasir el-Rufai, accusing them of launching unfounded attacks on President Bola Tinubu in a bid to reclaim political relevance for their own benefit.
In a statement signed on Monday by Felix Morka, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, the APC slammed the trio for using a birthday lecture held in Amaechi’s honour in Abuja on Saturday as a platform to condemn the Tinubu-led administration.
Morka dismissed the criticisms, including accusations that the President was “weaponising poverty”, as “baseless” and “hypocritical,” arguing that those levelling the charges had ample opportunity to address poverty during their extended time in public office but failed to do so.
“These three individuals have occupied Nigeria’s highest political offices between 1999 and 2023, either as vice-president, governors, or ministers,” Morka said.
“In all 24 years, they could not and did not eradicate poverty in their states or the country.
“They did not even attempt to address, let alone tackle, the structural challenges and distortions that stifled the economy and worsened poverty over the years.”
The ruling party described the former officeholders as “displaced rent-seekers” who misused public resources during their tenure and are now eager to return to power for self-serving reasons.
In a direct jab at Amaechi, Morka noted that despite his 24-year run as a state assembly speaker, governor, and minister, he had “absolutely no record of attempting to combat poverty in his Rivers state or the country.”
Referring to Amaechi’s recent statement where he said, “I am hungry,” Morka remarked: “When Amaechi declared, ‘I am hungry,’ he must be understood to mean he is hungry and desperate to return to his felt-entitled dependency on state resources and patronage.”
Morka also addressed criticisms of Tinubu’s economic policies, including the removal of fuel subsidies and the merging of exchange rates, describing them as bold moves that have sparked “historic” progress.
“Indubitably, in two years, President Tinubu has demonstrated political will to tackle structural barriers to the country’s economic growth and development far more than any other president in Nigeria’s modern history,” he said.
He claimed the country’s economy saw a 4.6 per cent growth in the final quarter of 2024 and noted that several states, previously unable to pay an N30,000 minimum wage, are now offering as much as N70,000, a testament, he said, to the success of Tinubu’s reforms.
“Mr President is on course and will not be distracted by the selfish partisan ramblings of hardened political opportunists and economic exploiters only bent on preserving the old, inefficient and permissive economic system,” Morka concluded.
He added that critics of the current reforms are only upset because the old patronage-based system has been dismantled.
“Entrepreneurs, farmers and service providers are thriving, while rent-seekers like Amaechi and his coalition partners are left seething with rage at the disruption of their ability to milk the system for personal gain,” he said.