Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has knocked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over the ongoing economic reform, saying the International Monetary Fund, IMF has captured succinctly what’s really happening in the country.

The IMF had last week warned the federal government over rising budget, saying it could be a big problem for the country.

The Tinubu’s administration has borrowed huge loans locally and from foreign creditors, including the IMF since coming to office three years ago, amidst warning by not a few Nigerians that the country’s future is being endangered over piled up debt.

Nigeria’s total public debt, according to checks is known to be around  N159.28 trillion.

Reacting, in a statement issued by his media aide, Phrank Shaibu, the former Nigerians Vice President said the economic policy is a deceit meant to punish the people of the country, noting that Nigerians are suffering while those in government are enjoying.

According to him, the IMF only confirmed the reality in the country, contrary to what the government is trying to project to Nigerians.

he explained that what Nigerians are experiencing under the administration is “renewed hardship” describing the current situation in the country as “national emergency” that the Tinubu’s administration has failed to admit.

“The IMF is not breaking news; it is confirming a national emergency that this administration refuses to acknowledge,” he said.

Abubakar stressed that Nigerians are suffering from all sides, including wage loss, high cost of goods, which have become “unaffordable” for not a few Nigerians, saying ‘survival’ has become so difficult under the current economic situation in the country, adding that Nigerians are supposed to be enjoying per the rise of crude oil price, but nothing to for the high earning from the nation’s major export, crude oil.

Instead many Nigerians are suffering from rising food cost, unstable exchange rate, high transportation cost, and how to send their children to school because of the economic conditions in the country, amidt insecurity which has forced many farmers to abandon their farms.

“At the grassroots, the story is even more brutal,” he continued. “Parents are pulling children out of school because education is now a luxury. Farmers are abandoning their lands out of fear of violence.

“Young people roam the streets, degrees in hand but hope in short supply. Small businesses are folding up like pack of cards under the weight of electricity tariffs, taxes, and a suffocating business climate.

“This administration has turned sacrifice into a one-way street where the people bleed and the government lectures,” Atiku said.

“You cannot ask a hungry people to be patient while policies choke the life out of them. That is not reform, that is punishment,” Abubakar noted.

Atiku also expressed concern over Nigeria’s growing debt burden, warning that the country risked entering a cycle in which present economic hardship is being financed at the expense of future generations.

“We are borrowing like there is no tomorrow, yet there is nothing to show today,” he said. “No jobs, no relief, no visible improvement in the lives of the people, only mounting debt and mounting pain.”

He further criticised the administration’s obsession with abstract economic theories while ignoring the human cost.

“Governance is not a classroom exercise,” he said. “It is about whether a pot boils in the kitchen, whether transport fare can be afforded, whether a small trader can restock, and whether a nation’s youth can dream again. Today, those simple things have become distant luxuries.”