The All Progressives Congress (APC) has chastised Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, for undervaluing President Bola Tinubu’s achievements after one year in office.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, decried Atiku’s remark that Tinubu was not ready for reforms, calling his programmes as “trial and error.”
He said the former Vice President’s swipe on the administration’s national security management again betrays his lack of touch with the reality of the current situation.
Morka noted that not only did the administration revamp and reconfigure the country’s security apparatus, it created a Special Security Fund to boost its superiority and operational effectiveness against merchants of crime and insecurity.
“Yet, Atiku turns a blind eye to considerable improvement in our security, especially in the North East where Atiku hails from,” he stressed.
Morka added that Atiku’s self-serving efforts to minimise the bold, genuine and metamorphic policies and interventions of the present administration only smacks of primordial political envy and crass desperation for the power that Nigerians have so wisely denied him.
He noted: “The former Vice President lives in an alternate reality of prejudice and unpatriotic desire for Nigeria’s failure so he may scavenge his way to an even more elusive presidency.
“Quite contrary to Atiku’s claim, President Bola Tinubu’s administration has, in its first year in office, attracted over $20 billion into the economy while the stock exchange has ballooned from N18.12 billion in Q1 of 2023 to N93.37 billion in Q1 of 2024, representing an increase of over 400 per cent with an annual economic growth rate leaping from 2.5 percent to 3.46 percent.”
Morka explained that key sectors of manufacturing, telecommunications, oil and gas, solid minerals, e-commerce and fintech have continued to attract increased and ceaseless flow of foreign direct investments (FDIs).
He said yet, Atiku remained willfully blind to the pace of progress that was so self-evident.
Morka said Tinubu set an audacious target of building a $1 trillion economy in the next few years and has put together a bevy of experts and professionals, and introduced far-reaching policies and programmes to drive the actualisation of this desirable economic target.
He said the President needs the support and encouragement of Nigerians, not the bile-filled pessimism of partisan Atikus.
The spokesperson said Atiku’s false alarm of an imminent food scarcity boldface ignores the widely acknowledged proactive measures already introduced by President Tinubu to guarantee food security in the country.
He recalled that in December 2023, the federal government set a target for the cultivation of 500,000 hectares of land across the federation.
He said cultivation of rice, maize, wheat and cassava on over 246,231 hectares of land in 30 states of the federation is in progress in addition to approving massive grants and other incentives to farmers.