He laid no plans to remodel the country but embarked on a cocktail of policies – Atiku says Tinubu’s one year yielded no fruits
Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, criticized President Ahmed Tinubu’s first year in office, claiming it failed to produce tangible results due to the lack of an implementation plan for his reforms.
Atiku expressed this view in an article released on Tuesday.
He noted that during his inauguration, President Bola Tinubu raised the hopes of Nigerians with promises to “remodel the economy to bring about growth and development through job creation, food security, and an end to extreme poverty.”
The former Vice-President pointed out that since then, Tinubu has also talked about growing the economy at double-digit rates to reach US$1 trillion in six years, ending misery, and providing immediate relief to Nigeria’s cost-of-living crisis.
Atiku remarked that upon hearing these pronouncements, Nigerians likely felt a sense of relief after enduring eight years of economic mismanagement under ex-President Buhari.
“Tinubu laid out no plans for the ‘remodeling’ of the economy but soon embarked on a cocktail of policies to achieve it.
“In May 2023, he eliminated PMS subsidies, and a month later, the CBN implemented a new foreign exchange policy that unified the multiple official FX windows into a single official market.
“More policies followed in rapid succession: the tightening of monetary policy to reduce Naira liquidity, a hike in monetary policy rates, the introduction of cost-reflective electricity tariff, and a cybersecurity tax.
“Predictably, 12 months on, Tinubu’s pledge of growing the economy and ending misery remains unfulfilled.
“His actions or inactions have significantly worsened Nigeria’s macroeconomic stability. Nigeria remains a struggling economy and is more fragile today than it was a year ago,” he said.
