Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, has accused the Bola Tinubu-led government of weaponising poverty against Nigerians.
Atiku said this is why he was collaborating with other politicians to build a formidable coalition that would reduce poverty and stop the use of state resources to weaponise poverty in the country.
The former presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stated this in Abuja on Saturday at the 60th birthday lecture of the former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, with the theme “Weaponising Poverty in Nigeria.”
According to him, “I want to say that what we are experiencing currently in Nigeria is state weaponisation of poverty. I say so because when I was growing up in the North, the most prosperous city or state was Kano State and incidentally, as soon as I finished my secondary school, my first location was Kano State. I never saw people sleeping outside. Then, there were no bridges or flyovers. I never saw people sleeping outside or outside the shops.”
“However, recently in Kano State where I visited, people were all over the state sleeping under the bridge, on the streets, because they are driven out by poverty and insecurity. There is a state agency in Kano responsible for providing support to such people and they started doing their work and enlightening people and removing people from under the bridges and outside on the streets. What happened? They were called from Abuja and were told to stop it,” Atiku added.
While speaking at the event, the celebrant and former minister of transportation, Amaechi, lamented the challenges brought by the current government, saying lack of capacity was one of the reasons why the Tinubu-led government has not performed well.
According to him, “The government said it has stopped the payment of about N5 trillion in fuel subsidy. The question is, what did they do with the money. If they had put it back into the economy, the issue of poverty would have reduced.”
Amaechi further stated that the issue of insecurity and poverty was a major problem in the country and that when he was the governor of Rivers State, he noticed the increase in crime rate was as a result of lack of money in circulation.
“When I was governor of Rivers State, I told my Commissioner of Finance, He is here. What did I tell you? I said ‘go and raise money, pay contractors, pay salary, pay money.’
And once you pay, insecurity will do what, go away. So it is about poverty. But currently, everybody wants their mass wealth and the major problem with Nigerians is that they don’t know how to protest,” he stated.
He also accused Nigeria politicians of playing politics of religion and ethnicity whenever elections come and that is why the wrong people always get elected into office.
According to him, “It is only during election that politicians begin to plan in the minds of Nigerians that they are either Christians or Muslims, playing ethnicity cards instead of capacity building.
“They came up with a Muslim-Muslim ticket and what have that led us to? They should have equally come up with a Muslim-Muslim market. Hunger knows no one whether you are a Muslim or a Christian. I always say, let’s put the country first on all we do.”
Also, speaking at the event, the 16th Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, said Nigeria was already in economic and security crisis and there was the need to tackle the challenges.
He lamented that Nigerian’s inflation is at over 30 per cent for years now, noting that even at 18 per cent inflation, prices double every year.
