The All Progressives Congress (APC) says former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, ex-minister Rotimi Amaechi and Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna, are united by a desperate desire to return to power for personal gain.
The party said the three politicians, who made critical remarks about President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies during Amaechi’s 60th birthday lecture in Abuja on May 31, are simply “frustrated rent-seekers clinging to a fading political relevance”.
While commenting on the state of the economy, Amaechi, who was the speaker of the Rivers house of assembly between 1999 and 2007 and also the two-term governor of the state from 2007 to 2015, said he is hungry.
“We’re all hungry; all of us are. If you’re not hungry, I am. For us, the opposition, if you want us to remove the man in power, we can remove him from this power,” Amaechi had said at the event.
However, in a statement issued on Monday, Felix Morka, national publicity secretary of the APC, carpeted the politicians for blaming Tinubu for a problem they also failed to eradicate in almost 25 years their party was in control.
“The APC strongly rejects the baseless allegation that the APC government of President Bola Tinubu was ‘weaponising’ poverty by not eradicating the scourge in two years – a feat they themselves failed to achieve during a quarter of a century in power,” the statement reads.
Morka said the birthday lecture was turned into a “frenzied” gathering of “displaced rent-seekers who misused their time in office and are now disoriented by Tinubu’s reforms”.
“These three individuals have occupied Nigeria’s highest political offices between 1999 and 2023,” he said.
“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.”
Morka accused them of “mindless rent-seeking, selling national assets to cronies, wasteful spending, and sponsoring state violence”.
Reacting to comments by the former minister of transportation, the APC spokesperson said, “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.”
Morka added that the former minister’s complaint about “hunger” barely two years out of office “underscores the depth of the self-serving motivations” behind his criticism.
The APC spokesperson said Nigerians can see through what he described as “disruptive politicking” from opposition figures, who are “losing their grip on the economy”.
He noted that Tinubu’s economic reforms have forced a departure from the rent-seeking model, replacing it with one that rewards “hard work, productivity, and innovation”.
Morka also blamed past administrations — especially the 16 years under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) — for failing to allow the naira to find its real value.
“The erstwhile, artificially overvalued naira stifled local production, encouraged import dependency, and exacerbated poverty,” he said.
“Atiku and Peter Obi, who are now vociferously criticising President Tinubu’s policies, amassed their wealth from the very import-dependent system they are desperately trying to preserve.”
He said Atiku, a former customs officer, and Obi, a successful importer, “reaped enormous benefits from the old system”.
“Their criticisms reek of special interest masqueraded as concern for the people,” he added.
According to Morka, by letting market forces determine the naira’s value, Tinubu is incentivising investment and economic growth.
“In two years, President Tinubu has demonstrated political will to tackle structural barriers to the country’s economic growth and development far more than any other president in Nigeria’s modern history,” he said.
Morka described the president’s critics as “beneficiaries of a corrupt and inefficient economic system” who are unsettled by reforms dismantling “their reckless plunder and exploitation of the economy”.
He said the removal of the fuel subsidy “ended massive corruption”, eliminated fuel queues, and attracted investments to the oil and gas sector.
According to him, the harmonisation of exchange rates has boosted competitiveness and revenue, enabling governments to invest more in infrastructure, health, education and social welfare.
He noted that states now pay N70,000 minimum wage, up from N30,000, attributing it to Tinubu’s reforms.
“The president’s reforms are dawning a new day for Nigeria, now witnessing economic transformation never before seen in our country’s history,” Morka said.
“Our trade balances are seeing a drastic improvement, with a sharp decline in imports and a steep rise in exports.”
He said Nigeria recorded 4.6 percent GDP growth in the last quarter of 2024, the highest in a decade, despite the global oil price downturn.
He added that the reforms are laying a foundation for food security, industrialisation and sustainable growth.
He said the administration is focused on long-term prosperity, even if it comes with short-term cost-of-living challenges.
“Mr President is on course and will not be distracted by the selfish partisan rambling of some hardened political opportunists and economic exploiters,” he said.
“The best strategic interest of our economy and the good people of Nigeria must continue to trump any and all political or electoral calculations.”
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