Atiku To Tinubu On Economy: CNG Policy Is A Failure, Medicine After Death

Presidential hope and candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Atiku Abubakar has described the federal government’s Compressed Natural Gas, CNG Conversion policy as a failure, saying the administration has not achieved anything with it.

The ADC presidential candidate said it’s an obvious failure if barely 120,000 vehicles out of 14 million vehicles in the country have so far been converted in three years since the policy kicked off under the administration.

Abukakar spoke in a statement issued on Friday by Phrank Shaibu, his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, saying the federal government’s efforts to make the policy looked like a success has turned out “an advertisement of policy failure” noting that the number of converted vehicles in the country is less than one percent.

The presidential candidate’s remark came after President Tinubu disclosed that he had a meeting with the 36 state governors in the country, where they agreed on how to invest in CNG and electric vehicles to cushion the effect of transportation costs on Nigerians.

Abubakar however stated that whatever the administration is doing is an afterthought, accusing President Tinubu of being responsible for the economic hardship in the country, after he removed fuel subsidy without first thinking of its effects on the citizens.

“If Tinubu’s grand strategy for cushioning the consequences of his reckless and poorly thought-out subsidy removal is CNG conversion, then the admission that only about 120,000 vehicles have been converted in more than three years is not an achievement. It is an advertisement of policy failure,” Atiku said.

“Against widely cited estimates of roughly 14 million vehicles on Nigerian roads, 120,000 conversions amount to less than one per cent. That is the government’s own number. That is Tinubu marking his own examination script.

“If a student returned less than one per cent in his core subject, WAEC would not call it progress. Yet Tinubu wants Nigerians to reward the political equivalent of that catastrophic score with another four years. The truth is simple: Nigeria cannot afford another four years of monumental failure.

“For more than three years, Nigerians begged this government for relief. Tinubu removed subsidy without a credible cushioning framework, watched transport costs explode, watched food prices follow, watched businesses suffocate under crushing energy costs, and repeatedly told Nigerians that their suffering was the unavoidable price of reform.

“Now that elections are approaching, and Nigerians are rallying behind Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s proposal for a production-based subsidy to immediately tackle the cost-of-living crisis created by Tinubu, the same government that ridiculed and criticised Atiku’s plan has suddenly discovered that Nigerians need cheaper transportation.

“This is medicine after death. You cannot break a man’s leg, abandon him in pain for three and a half years, then return with crutches and demand applause for compassion. Tinubu created the transport crisis; CNG cannot now be packaged as heroism,” Abubakar said.