Abuja, July 14, 2025 – Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2023 elections, has blamed the hasty removal of petrol subsidy for the current economic hardship across the country.
He said the hasty and thoughtless removal of petrol subsidy by President Bola Tinubu has “buried the average Nigerian under the weight of inflation, hunger, and despair.”
Atiku expressed his sentiments in a statement posted on his X handle on Sunday.
“When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu hastily and thoughtlessly removed fuel subsidy on the day of his inauguration, he triggered an economic avalanche that has since buried the average Nigerian under the weight of inflation, hunger, and despair,” he said.
Atiku decried federal government’s failure to fulfil its promise to pay a wage award to federal civil servants as a temporary relief to the workers, noting that only six months of the promised ₦35,000 monthly allowance had been paid.
“By implication, the federal government owes 10 months of wage award arrears to federal workers.
“Yet, only six months have been paid and that too, after a series of unfulfilled assurances and avoidable delays,” he said.
Atiku described as the attitude of the federal government to the payment of the wage award as “callous indifference and utter disdain for workers’ welfare.”
He also decried the arrest of Andrew Emelieze who was allegedly arrested for planning a protest to demand payment of the outstanding wage award.
“Instead of engaging in dialogue or fulfilling its promises, the government has now resorted to tyranny and suppression of free speech.
“His only ‘crime’ was speaking up for workers abandoned by the state,” he said.
