The ruling All Progressives Congress APC has lashed out at
the trio of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; former Minister of
Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; and, a former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir
El-Rufai, accusing them of weaponizing poverty in their desperate attempt to
return to feeding off on the state.
APC said it strongly rejects the baseless allegation that
the APC government of President Bola Tinubu was “weaponizing” poverty by not
eradicating the scourge in two years – a feat that the trio failed to achieve
during a quarter of a century in power.
“These statements were reportedly made at a public lecture
held in Abuja on Saturday, May 31, 2025, to mark the 60th birthday anniversary
celebration of Chief Rotimi Amechi, former governor of Rivers state and former Minister
of Transportation. But the celebration quickly dissolved into an occasion for
Amaechi, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President, and Mallam Nasir
El-Rufai, former Governor of Kaduna state and former Minister of the Federal
Capital Territory – leading displaced rent-seekers – to showcase their frenzied
desperation to grab power purely for their self aggrandizement”, said party
spokesman, Felix Morka.
APC noted that the 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.
“Nigerians see right through their disruptive politicking.
Amaechi and his cohorts are losing their grip on the economy. Accustomed to
fleecing the economy, they are now compelled by Tinubu’s unprecedented reforms
to adapt to a new reality where hard work, productivity, and innovation are
rewarded. Their criticisms of President Tinubu’s reforms are decidedly
self-serving, driven by a desperate quest for power to satiate their voracious
rent-seeking appetite, which has long stifled and denied progress to the
economy.
“On contrary, 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”, said Morka.
He said, Atiku, a former Custom Officer, and Peter Obi, a
successful importer, reaped enormous benefits from the old system, adding that
their criticisms reek of special interest masqueraded as concern for the
people.
“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”, APC stated.
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