Sophia Michaels
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has taken a swipe at President Bola Tinubu over his speech on Independence Day.
Speaking via a statement by his media aide Phrank Shaibu, Atiku stated that Tinubu failed to announce an increase in the minimum wage, following the decimation of the naira, in the aftermath of petrol subsidy removal.
He argued that Tinubu’s excuse for not increasing the wage shows that he put the cart before the horse.
Atiku urged the president to stop making excuses for his failure.
According to him, “Many workers were hopeful that minimum wage would be announced today. However, what Tinubu decided to do was to add an allowance of N25,000 ($25) to the lowest paid workers for six months only. This is a man who is not in sync with the current realities that the people are living in.
“He claimed he refused to increase the minimum wage in order not to worsen the inflation rate. If he cared so much about the inflation rate, he ought to have planned properly before removing the petrol subsidy and forcing the Central Bank to embark on a failed exchange rate unification policy which has not been backed by a corresponding boost in exports
In effect, Tinubu put the cart before the horse, and now that the horse has trampled on the cart, he is making excuses for his own incompetence. This is shameful.”
Atiku, while stating that the removal of fuel subsidy was not an achievement, but rather what was done with the savings, berated Tinubu for describing himself as an achiever for removing subsidy and for saying that subsidy ought to have been removed earlier.
He noted that the President was one of the loudest voices against subsidy removal back in 2012 when the Goodluck Jonathan administration decided to remove it.
“Tinubu should bury his face in shame for criticising former presidents for retaining subsidies. Here is a man who described petrol increase back in January 2012 as ‘Jonathan tax’ when subsidy was removed at the time.
“Tinubu told Jonathan to go after the oil thieves rather than Nigerians. Let Tinubu also be brave enough to expose and prosecute the so-called subsidy thieves he loves to reference in every speech. Let Tinubu also be man enough to apologise for sponsoring protests in Lagos back in 2012 over subsidy,” he added.
