The ruling All Progressives Congress has taken a swipe at former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, accusing him of deliberately whipping up public anger and attempting to incite a revolution with his claim that Nigerians are being crushed by hunger.
The APC described Atiku’s comments as “incendiary” and a ploy to gain political relevance after multiple failed attempts at the presidency.
National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, stated this while featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday.
Morka accused Atiku of political desperation, saying Nigerians have repeatedly rejected him at the polls and would not be swayed by his attacks on the Tinubu administration.
“At this point, I want to believe that Atiku does not live in Nigeria. He’s completely out of touch with what goes on in this country. I think he goes back to his old notebooks, picks up a headline and then begins to write as he does. Is he inciting a revolution in this country?
“Because as a former vice president, I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest that’s what he’s doing. It’s actually grossly disappointing when a man who was entrusted with power as vice president of the Federal Republic, who had the opportunity for eight years to eradicate poverty, end hunger, insecurity and anything suggestive of deprivation of Nigerians.
“He didn’t do it in eight years with his principal at the time,” he said.
Earlier, Atiku raised an alarm over what he described as worsening hunger and hardship under the Bola Tinubu administration.
PUNCH Online reports that in a statement signed by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, Atiku warned that the growing frustration among the poor could trigger mass unrest if left unchecked.
“At this time, there are no manifest signs that this government is capable of addressing the grim issue of severe hunger staring the poor in the face after two years in power,” Atiku said.
He drew parallels with historic uprisings fueled by poverty.
“The French Revolution, the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Arab Spring, in which a young man caught in the maelstrom of unbearable frustration set himself ablaze in a development which occasioned violent socio-political eruptions starting out from Tunisia to engulf the Middle-East and North Africa.
“Back home here in Nigeria, it may not be out of place to argue that even the “ENDSARS” protest was fuelled by the traumatising frustration of hunger and insensitivity on the part of the government,” he noted.
The former vice president stressed that Tinubu’s economic reforms lacked a “human face” and warned that the continued neglect of citizens’ welfare could have dire consequences.
Atiku further said, “Whether the present powers accept it or not, the reality of our existence is that the poor are increasingly dying of hunger while the majority of the living poor exists at the mercy of the ill-advised policies of this government.”
