The Special Assistant on Public Communications to Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu, has faulted the proposed palliative of President Bola Tinubu.
Shaibu said Tinubu’s plan to give out N8,000 to 12 million households for six months was an attempt to divert public funds.
He said Tinubu’s plan to “spend $800m on palliatives under an opaque arrangement was reminiscent of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s conditional cash transfer and COVID-19 intervention initiative which saw politicians keeping food items and provisions in their homes while the poor went hungry.”
In a statement he signed, Shaibu recalled that a report by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that former President Muhammadu Buhari’s interventionist programmes ended up making Nigerians poorer.
According to Shaibu: “After announcing the removal of petrol subsidy without proper planning, Tinubu has asked for the approval of $800m loan which he claims will be disbursed to 12 million households for six months at N8,000 for each household per month. This is a continuation of the scam of the All Progressives Congress.
”According to statistics, a Nigerian household as at 2019 counted on an average of 5.06 members. So, with Tinubu’s uninspiring plan, each individual in a household will get N1,600 per month or N53 per day. What should they do with it? Use the money to buy a sachet (pure) water or a cup of boiled groundnut on a daily basis. And this is the man they claim transformed the economy of Lagos State? This must be a joke or a more sinister attempt to divert public funds.
Shaibu argued that Tinubu lacked a clear economic policy apart from taxing Nigerians.
He alleged that having deceptively attained presidential power, Tinubu has been exposed as an economic illiterate.
“The so-called palliatives that Tinubu seeks to share to the poor are just another avenue to divert public funds.
“For years, the Nigerian government has rejected calls to publish the list of the beneficiaries of the so-called palliatives but this has never been done because it is all a scam.
“Tinubu should stop trying to deceive Nigerians who are still suffering from the effect of his lacklustre economic policies.”
