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According to the All Progressives Congress, APC, Nasir El-Rufai, the immediate previous governor of Kaduna State, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, and former Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi are all keen to regain power for their own benefit.

Felix Morka, the spokesperson for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, made this claim in a statement on Monday in Abuja.

He claims that the three politicians are just “frustrated rent-seekers clinging to a fading political relevance” for criticizing President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies during Amaechi’s 60th birthday talk in Abuja on May 31.

Recall how Amaechi who was the Speaker of the Rivers house of Assembly between 1999 and 2007 and also the two-term governor of the state from 2007 to 2015, said he is hungry when discussing the status of the economy.

“We’re all hungry; all of us are. If you’re not hungry, I am. For us, the opposition, if you want us to remove the man in power, we can remove him from this power,” Amaechi had said.

In the statement, the APC National Publicity Secretary scolded the politicians for holding Tinubu responsible for an issue that they themselves were unable to resolve during the nearly 25 years that their party ruled.

“The APC strongly rejects the baseless allegation that the APC government of President Bola Tinubu was ‘weaponising’ poverty by not eradicating the scourge in two years – a feat they themselves failed to achieve during a quarter of a century in power,” the statement read.

Morka said the birthday lecture was turned into a “frenzied” gathering of “displaced rent-seekers who misused their time in office and are now disoriented by Tinubu’s reforms”.

“These three individuals have occupied Nigeria’s highest political offices between 1999 and 2023. In all 24 years, the trio, individually or collectively, could not and did not eradicate poverty in their states or the country.

“They did not even attempt to address, let alone tackle, the structural challenges and distortions that stifled the economy and worsened poverty over the years,” he said.

In addition, the APC image maker charged the three of wasted spending, mindless rent-seeking, selling national assets to cronies, and supporting state violence.

In response to remarks made by the previous transportation minister, Morka stated, “That’s about a quarter of a century of freeloading by Amaechi on state resources, with absolutely no record of attempting to combat poverty in his Rivers state or the country.

“When Amaechi declared, ‘I am hungry,’ he must mean, and must be understood to mean, that he is hungry and desperate to return to his felt entitled dependency on state resources and patronage.”

The APC scribe went on to say that the former governor of Rivers State’s grievance on hunger, which he made just two years after leaving office, illustrates the extent of his self-serving motivations.

He claimed that opposition leaders are losing control of the economy and that Nigerians are able to see through their disruptive political tactics.

According to the APC spokesperson, Tinubu’s economic reforms have compelled a shift away from the rent-seeking paradigm and toward one that rewards hard work, productivity, and innovation.

Additionally, he faulted previous administrations for preventing the naira from realizing its full value, particularly the 16 years under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

“The erstwhile, artificially overvalued naira stifled local production, encouraged import dependency, and exacerbated poverty.

“Atiku and Peter Obi, who are now vociferously criticising President Tinubu’s policies, amassed their wealth from the very import-dependent system they are desperately trying to preserve,” he said.

He restated that Peter Obi, a prosperous importer, and Atiku, a former customs officer, benefited greatly from the previous system.

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