Osaretin Osadebamwen
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on President Bola Tinubu to cease blaming former President Muhammadu Buhari and other past leaders for Nigeria’s ongoing challenges.
In a statement issued on Friday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the African Democratic Congress presidential candidate argued that an administration still pointing fingers at its predecessors more than three years into its tenure is effectively admitting it has exhausted its own ideas.
Atiku maintained that Nigerians have grown weary of excuses and are no longer interested in identifying who caused the nation’s problems. Instead, he emphasized that citizens are now more concerned with finding leaders capable of providing tangible solutions to the country’s multifaceted crises.
The former vice president stressed that continuous blame-shifting undermines public confidence and distracts from the pressing issues affecting ordinary Nigerians, including insecurity, economic hardship and unemployment. He urged the current administration to take full responsibility for governance and focus on delivering measurable results.
Atiku’s remarks come amid growing frustration among Nigerians over the deteriorating security and economic conditions, with many calling for decisive action rather than prolonged debates over past administrations. He reiterated that leadership demands accountability and that Nigerians deserve a government committed to solving problems rather than relitigating history.
“The constitution did not swear President Tinubu into office to explain history. It swore him into office to change it. Every administration inherits problems. Great leaders are remembered for solving them, not for endlessly rehearsing them.
The former Vice President’s outburst was triggered by Tinubu’s recent claim that “prosperity is on the horizon” and that the quality of life for Nigerians is improving, a suggestion Atiku dismissed as a fantasy detached from reality.
“Mr President says prosperity is on the horizon. Nigerians are asking, ‘Whose horizon?’ Certainly not that of the market woman whose capital has been wiped out by inflation. Not that of the civil servant whose salary now expires before the month begins,”
“China did not become an economic superpower by complaining about the size of its population. It became prosperous because visionary leadership transformed that population into its greatest economic asset through sustained investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, education, technology, and export-led industrialisation,”
He pledged that an Atiku administration would pursue aggressive investment in manufacturing, modern infrastructure, quality education, skills acquisition, agriculture and export-driven industries to unlock what he described as the country’s enormous productive capacity.
“Nobody ‘elected’ Tinubu to eliminate the hunger of 1940. Nigerians ‘elected’ him to confront the hunger of today. The fact that previous generations endured hardship is not a licence to deepen the suffering of the present generation,” he said.
