Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has accused the administration of President Bola Tinubu of worsening economic conditions for Nigerian businesses while foreign investors withdraw capital from the country.
Atiku’s comment is contained in a statement issued on
Tuesday by Phrank Shaibu, his senior special assistant on public communication.
The presidential candidate of the African Democratic
Congress (ADC) cited Nigerian Exchange data showing that foreign investors
brought N513.36 billion into the Nigerian equities market between January and
July 2026 but withdrew N779.43 billion, resulting in a net outflow of N266.07
billion.
He said foreign outflows exceeded inflows in every month
during the period, adding that the net outflow was about 11.7 times the N22.68
billion recorded during the corresponding period of 2023.
“This is not merely an investment statistic. It is a
confidence verdict on the Tinubu economy,” the statement reads.
The former vice-president said the development was coming
amid increased domestic borrowing by the federal government, which he said had
risen by 90.5 percent to N24.7 trillion in eight months.
Atiku also said credit to government had grown more than
four times faster than credit to the private sector.
“So, the picture is now painfully clear: Tinubu’s government
is crowding Nigerian businesses out of the domestic credit market while foreign
investors are taking their money and heading for the exit,” he said.
“Local businesses are suffocating. Foreign capital is
fleeing. Government borrowing is exploding. Food prices has skyrocketed.
Transportation costs are crushing families.”
He accused the administration of celebrating its economic
reforms despite what he described as worsening hardship.
“Yet, with Nigerians crushed under the weight of its
disastrous policies, the Tinubu administration still has the audacity to
celebrate itself for presiding over an economic catastrophe of its own making,”
he said.
Atiku said an economy could not be considered to be
recovering when entrepreneurs could not afford credit, manufacturers struggled
with operating costs, households were poorer and investors remained unwilling
to keep their money in Nigeria.
He said investors were looking beyond government speeches
and headline economic figures to fundamentals such as policy consistency,
inflation, purchasing power, predictable regulation and the ability to earn
sustainable real returns.
“And their verdict is increasingly unmistakable: take the
money and run,” he said.
The ADC presidential candidate said Nigeria needed economic
policies that would restore investor confidence, lower the cost of doing
business, make energy and transportation more affordable and encourage
production.
He said the private sector, rather than government
borrowing, should drive economic growth.
“That is the fundamental difference between Tinubu’s
economics of government consumption and Atiku’s economics of private-sector
production and household affordability,” he said.
“You cannot borrow the private sector dry, impoverish
consumers and then advertise yourself to the world as an investment
destination. The investors are already answering the propaganda. They are
leaving.”
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