Atiku: Nigerians Suffering While Government Celebrates Loans

 

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Thursday delivered a scathing rebuke of the President Bola Tinubu administration, lamenting that ransom payments have become as routine a household expense for Nigerians as school fees and rent, even as the government touts favourable debt comparisons with other African nations.

In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku was responding to recent comments from the Presidency suggesting that Nigeria’s borrowing level compares favourably with some African countries. He argued that the comparison exposed what he described as a dangerous disconnect between those in power and the grinding realities faced by ordinary Nigerians.

“It is both astonishing and insulting that at a time when millions of Nigerians can barely afford one meal a day, when parents are withdrawing children from school because of crushing hardship, when businesses are collapsing under unbearable electricity tariffs and inflation, and when entire communities are being overrun by terrorists, bandits, and kidnappers, the Presidency is celebrating debt figures as though indebtedness itself were an economic achievement,” he said.

The former vice president painted a harrowing picture of a nation where road travel has become a gamble with death and where families dread midnight calls announcing the abduction of loved ones.

“In many parts of Nigeria today, travelling by road has become a gamble with death. Families go to bed praying not to receive midnight calls announcing the abduction of loved ones. Villages are sacked almost routinely while those in power appear more concerned about image management than decisive action. What exactly are Nigerians benefiting from all these loans if insecurity continues to spread and the economy continues to suffocate?” he queried.

Atiku linked the insecurity crisis directly to collapsing food production, arguing that farmers had been driven off their lands by armed gangs across vast territories, triggering scarcity, hunger, and malnutrition.

“Across the country, farmers can no longer safely access their farmlands because vast territories have effectively fallen under the control of armed gangs and terrorists. Food production has declined sharply because rural communities now live under constant threat of attacks, abductions, and killings. The inevitable result is what Nigerians are currently witnessing, astronomical food prices, widespread hunger, malnutrition, and rising anger among citizens abandoned by their own government,” he stated.

The Waziri Adamawa acknowledged that borrowing is not inherently wrong when tied to productive investments, but insisted that under the current administration, unprecedented borrowing had yielded only deeper poverty and despair.

“No nation becomes prosperous by borrowing to finance consumption, sustain wasteful government lifestyles, and paper over policy failures. Countries that borrow responsibly do so to expand productivity, create jobs, secure critical infrastructure, and improve the welfare of their citizens. In Nigeria today, however, citizens see no correlation between the mounting debt profile and improvement in their daily lives,” he said.

He accused the administration of weaponising propaganda, recalling that the government in which he served alongside former President Olusegun Obasanjo had pursued disciplined reforms that freed Nigeria from the burden of Paris Club debt.

“It is therefore tragic that a government that inherited a struggling but manageable economy has plunged the nation into deeper debt, deeper poverty, deeper insecurity, and deeper despair within such a short period, yet still expects applause from suffering citizens,” Atiku said.

He dismissed the Presidency’s debt comparisons as statistical gymnastics, insisting that ordinary citizens care only about whether food is affordable, their children safe, and businesses able to survive.

“Nigerians do not care about statistical gymnastics from government spokespersons. They care about whether food is affordable, whether their children are safe, whether businesses can survive, whether farmers can return to their lands, and whether the future still holds any promise. Sadly, under this administration, the answer to those questions is becoming increasingly bleak,” he concluded.

Atiku urged the administration to abandon propaganda and confront the nation’s harsh realities with sincerity, competence, urgency, and compassion before Nigeria slips further into instability.