Atiku: Tinubu weaponising poverty — we’ve never had it this bad

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar says the President Bola Tinubu administration is weaponising poverty against Nigerians.

Abubakar spoke on Saturday at a public lecture to mark the 60th birthday anniversary of Rotimi Amaechi, former governor of Rivers state.

He posited that Kano state was once prosperous with little visible homelessness, lamenting the current rise in street dwellers.

“Growing up in the north, the most prosperous city or state was Kano. As soon as I finished secondary school, my first location was Kano state. I never saw people sleeping outside then. There were no bridges or flyovers,” he said.

“I never saw people sleeping outside or outside the shops in Kano state, but recently, I noticed that people were all over the state sleeping under the bridge or on the streets. These people are driven out by poverty and insecurity.

“There is a state agency in Kano responsible for providing support to such people, and they started doing their work to enlighten people and remove people from under the bridges and outside on the streets.

“What happened? They were called to Abuja, and they were told to stop it. That is why I wanted to amend today’s topic to add state weaponisation of poverty.

“This particular government is weaponising poverty. You may call me a conspirator, you may call me anything.”

Abubakar said he is engaging in coalition talks to unseat Tinubu in 2027 to end the widespread poverty.

“And that is why we are in this alliance to make sure we don’t allow them to continue weaponising poverty. Of course, one of our star conspirators is Rotimi Amaechi,” he added.

“Therefore, we are here to wish you many happy returns. We will continue to conspire with you to make sure we minimise poverty and don’t use state machinery to weaponise poverty.”

Also speaking, Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna, disagreed with Abubakar, saying politicians do not intentionally use poverty as a tool against the people.

“So, here we (Ameachi and I) are back together because Nigeria is in its biggest trouble since 1914. We are together working, conspiring to build a coalition to take Nigeria back on track because it is off track,” el-Rufai said.

“I don’t think so. Poverty weaponises itself if allowed to exist. That is what has happened in Nigeria. I don’t think politicians are that smart to even sit and weaponise poverty.”

El-Rufai added that the key challenge for Nigerians in 2027 is to choose those with competence, capability, capacity and “commitment to make Nigeria move forward”.