Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, has called President Bola Ahmed Tinubu a hypocrite, a liar about history, and politically desperate.
Atiku’s spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu, said that Tinubu’s recent comments were a “reckless tirade” that shows “a troubling pattern of hypocrisy and historical amnesia.”
Reports say that President Tinubu had criticized Atiku for his qualifications and how he ran the country’s economy while he was vice president.
In response, the former vice president said he was shocked that a president who has been questioned about his own qualifications would try to discredit others who have clear records of public service.
The statement said, “Atiku Abubakar has seen President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s latest reckless tirade, which shows not only desperation but also a worrying pattern of hypocrisy and forgetting the past.”
Atiku’s camp said that President Tinubu’s criticism of the country’s privatization falls apart when you look at it closely. They pointed out that the president had previously opposed the very reforms he now seems to be putting into place.
Atiku had long pushed for the sale of refineries and the privatization of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to trustworthy private investors. At the time, Tinubu reportedly disagreed with him.
The statement, on the other hand, said that the current government is now in charge of a system that has effectively turned the national oil company into a business “in opacity—without clear valuation, without transparency, and with lingering questions over who truly benefits.”
Atiku said, “This is not reform; it is privatization without accountability.”
“It’s not our fault that the president can’t read. Bola Tinubu went to school in Lagos two years before it was founded, and he used that time to get his degree from Chicago State University.
“If he had received a proper education, he would have read the privatization records in the presidency or the detailed account of these reforms by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai in The Accidental Public Servant, which clearly showed that the privatization program was a brave and well-planned effort to get rid of inefficiency and encourage growth in the private sector.”
It also said that Tinubu’s comments could only have been made if he didn’t know about facts that were already known in public records and reliable accounts.
“You can’t be against reform when it takes courage and then do a shadow version of it in power,” the statement said.
