Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has described Nigeria’s current economic condition as “organized hardship dressed up as reforms”, blaming President Bola Tinubu for the cost of living crisis in the country.
Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to the former vice president, Phrank Shaibu, said he was reacting to the latest warning by the International Monetary Fund IMF over Nigeria’s economic trajectory.
Atiku said the IMF’s intervention was not a revelation but a confirmation of what millions of Nigerians already endure daily — a life defined by soaring prices, a collapsing currency, and waning hope.
“At a time when Nigerians were promised renewed hope, what they have received is renewed hardship — raw, relentless, and unforgiving. The IMF is not breaking news; it is confirming a national emergency that this administration refuses to acknowledge”, he said.
Shaibu in the statement painted a grim picture of everyday life, contrasting the government’s polished economic rhetoric with harsh realities on the ground.
He said despite rising global oil prices, ordinary Nigerians are sinking deeper into poverty — crushed under spiralling food costs, punishing transportation fares, a chaotic exchange rate and a currency that “seems to lose value by the hour.”
Lamenting the human toll of what he termed “trial-and-error economics,”, the statement warned that the country is experiencing not merely an economic downturn but “a full-blown erosion of human dignity.”
He said, “At the grassroots, the story is even more brutal. 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 a 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,” he 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.
“We are borrowing like there is no tomorrow, yet there is nothing to show today. No jobs, no relief, no visible improvement in the lives of the people — only mounting debt and mounting pain.
“Governance is not a classroom exercise. 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.
“The true test of leadership is simple — are the people better off or worse? Today, Nigerians are worse off — far worse off. And no amount of spin can hide that truth.”
