ECONOMY: Atiku dubs Buhari a failure, asks him to return to his rustic lifestyle in Daura

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, on Sunday responded to an alleged claim by President Muhammadu Buhari that Nigeria’s economy was in bad shape.

He said the confession by the President means he’s a failure and should resign and return to his much “cherished sedentary, pastoral and rustic lifestyle in his country home in Daura.”

Buhari was said to have made the confession on Friday when he had a meeting with the 36 governors at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on the new minimum wage issue.

But responding on Sunday in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Mr. Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said Buhari’s confession was a ploy to attract the sympathy of Nigerians and to get a soft landing.

“The result, of course, is his confession of failure on the eve of our general elections in the hope that millions of Nigerians, whom he has condemned to poverty and hardship, will give him a clap for failing abysmally.

“I dare say that President Buhari has miscalculated badly on this matter because Nigerians are simply fed up with him. The economy has collapsed under his watch and he has by this frank remark admitted that he has no idea on how to fix it and that is why he summoned the governors to help him.

“This is really very sad because President Buhari has run out of time and what Nigerians need now is leadership which has the political will, administrative experience and sound economic acumen to get Nigeria working again,” he said.

While regretting that Buhari had continued to blame the PDP for Nigeria’s bad economy under his government, Atiku argued that the President’s alleged claim on economy was a confirmation that he is incapable of fixing the economy.

According to him, Buhari’s admission confirmed the British multinational bank HSBC’s prediction that re-electing him in 2019 could plunge Nigeria into a deeper economic hardship.

“Unless those in charge of the APC and the party’s supporters are, as usual, suffering from some form of self-delusion, it just does not make any sense for them to say that the All Progressives Congress’ Federal Government has brought succor to ordinary Nigerians when President Buhari himself has admitted to the governors that the economy has gone beyond his control.

“Or do we need a prophet to tell us that the President’s admission is a vindication of our long-held position, and indeed the forecast by HSBC recently cited by the Nigerian media where the bank said a second term for Buhari would greatly affect the economy of the country?

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“The exchange rate of the naira to the US dollar when the APC assumed office in 2015 was about N170 (official rate) to $1. Today it is N360 to $1. Today millions of Nigerians, most of them youths, are unemployed, forcing them to become professional beggars who wait for the  FG’s monthly N5,000 handout and N10,000 Tradermoni aimed at bribing them to re-elect the party in the forthcoming elections.

“Power generation has actually dipped from 4,949 megawatts, which the PDP left in 2015 to less than 3,500 megawatts even though Buhari’s managers consistently claim that 7,000 megawatts are what the country is currently generating. What more evidence do we need to know that the APC has been a curse rather than a blessing to our country?

“Our President is still living in the Paleolithic age of blame game and buck-passing as responsible for his failures. What this simply means is that President Buhari was not really prepared for governance and did not even understand the simplest intricacies of running a national economy as big as Nigeria.

“This is really tragic and it is obvious that President Buhari has come to the end of the road and has completely given up on the next steps to advance Nigeria, while those who his dear wife openly declared misled his administration into this economic quagmire are still drumming up support for his next level of more hardship, suffering, unprovoked deaths as a result of mis-governance,” he said.

He added that Buhari is exhausted and should be advised to return to “his much cherished sedentary, pastoral and rustic lifestyle in his country home in Daura and then leave the rigours and highly strategic art of governance to those who know how to govern and get the economy working again.”

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