Former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last general elections, Atiku Abubakar, has accused the Bola Tinubu administration 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.
He spoke yesterday in Abuja at the 60th birthday lecture of a former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi.
He said, “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 when I visited, people were all over the state sleeping under the bridge, on the streets because they were driven out by poverty and insecurity. There is a state agency in Kano responsible for providing support for such people and they started doing their work and enlightening people and removing them from under bridges and streets. What happened? They were called from Abuja and were told to stop it.”
Speaking at the event, former minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, while lamenting the challenges brought by the current government, said lack of capacity is one of the reasons why the Tinubu-led government has not performed well.
He said, “The government said it had 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 salaries, 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 Nigerian politicians of playing politics of religion and ethnicity whenever elections come and that is why the wrong people always get elected.
“It is only during elections 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,” he said.
Also speaking at the event, the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, said Nigeria was already in economic and security crises and there was need to tackle these challenges.
He lamented that Nigeria’s inflation is presently at over 30 percent, noting that even at 18 percent inflation, prices double every year.
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