Former Vice-President and African Democratic Congress (ADC) 2027 presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has heavily criticized President Bola Tinubu’s administration for attempting to shift the blame for the country’s severe insecurity and economic hardship onto ordinary citizens and the media. Atiku’s robust reaction followed controversial remarks by Presidential Special Adviser Bayo Onanuga on Arise TV, who accused Nigerian journalists of exaggerating crime reporting and insinuated that citizens were partly to blame for kidnappings by ignoring police warnings against traveling at night. In a fierce counter-statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku questioned whether the presidency was officially declaring Nigeria an “eight-hour economy” where safety ends strictly at sunset. He argued that a trader traveling from Kano to Lagos or a farmer transporting produce should never be blamed for criminal ambushes, asserting that the absolute burden of security belongs solely to the federal government and its security agencies. Defending the press against executive intimidation, the opposition leader brilliantly noted that blaming journalists for highlighting nationwide suffering and hyperinflation is exactly like blaming a thermometer for a patient’s fever. Atiku concluded that a father wondering how to feed his family needs immediate solutions, practical economic policies, and tangible results from the presidency rather than continuous public relations lectures on perception.
