The All Progressives Congress (APC) has lampooned the the former minister of transportation, Rotimi Amechi; former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, over what it described as the baseless allegation that the government of President Bola Tinubu was “weaponizing poverty” by not eradicating the scourge in two years.
APC said this while reacting to the comments reportedly made at a public lecture held in Abuja on Saturday to mark the 60th birthday anniversary of Amaechi, who is also a former governor of Rivers State.
The APC national publicity secretary, Felix Morka, who stated this in Abuja on Monday, said the trio of Amaechi, El-Rufai and Atiku were demanding from Tinubu what they failed to achieve during a quarter of a century in power within two years of APC rule.
He described the former Rivers and Kaduna State governors as well as Nigeria’s former vice president as leading displaced rent-seekers who used the occasion to showcase their frenzied desperation to grab power purely for their self-aggrandizement.
“These three individuals have occupied Nigeria’s highest political offices between 1999 and 2023, either as Vice President, Governors, or Ministers, among other important positions. In all 24 years, the trio, individually or collectively, 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.
“Rather, they reveled in mindless rent-seeking behavior, sold national assets to their cronies for mere pittance, engaged in corrupt and wasteful expenditures in their states, and relentlessly sponsored state violence against their own people.
“Take the case of Amaechi, the celebrant, who served for an unbroken total of 24 years – eight years as Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, eight years as Governor of Rivers state, and eight years as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. That’s about a quarter of a century of freeloading by Amaechi on state resources, with absolutely no record of attempting to combat poverty in his Rivers State or the country.
“When Amaechi declared, “I am hungry,” he must mean, and must be understood to mean, that he is hungry and desperate to return to his felt entitled dependency on state resources and patronage. That he is hungry barely two years out of office simply underscores the depth of the self-serving motivations of Amaechi and his coalition partners in their quest for power for selfish exploitation, and not for the interest of the people,” Morka said.
He said it was the failure of previous administrations, particularly 16 years of PDP administrations to allow the Naira to find its real value that created the economic conditions of poverty that the present administration is now addressing.
“The erstwhile artificially overvalued Naira stifled local production, encouraged import dependency, and exacerbated poverty. Ironically, Atiku and Peter Obi, who are now vociferously criticizing President Tinubu’s policies, amassed their wealth from the very import-dependent system they are desperately trying to preserve.
“Atiku, a former Custom Officer, and Obi, a successful importer, reaped enormous benefits from the old system. Their criticisms reek of special interest masqueraded as concern for the people. By allowing market forces to determine the Naira’s value, the administration is taking necessary bold steps to catalyze economic growth, incentivize investment, boost competitiveness, and alleviate poverty.
“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. By his bold economic reforms, President Tinubu is systematically building the most potent bulwark against poverty and positioning the economy to deliver sustained and sustainable growth and prosperity for all Nigerians.
“The criticisms variously leveled by Amaechi, Atiku, El-Rufai and Peter Obi mask a shameless attempt to perpetuate and cling to the old rent-seeking economy that enriched them at the expense of the Nigerian people.
“As beneficiaries of the corrupt and inefficient economic system, they are discomforted that Tinubu’s reforms are dismantling the insidious and permissive system that enabled and sustained their reckless plunder and exploitation of the economy,” Morka added.
