Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has expressed deep concern over the worsening hunger and poverty ravaging the country, particularly among the underprivileged and vulnerable citizens.
In a statement issued by his media office on Monday, Atiku said the primary responsibility of any government is to safeguard the security and welfare of its people, but lamented that Nigerians are “progressively wallowing in misery and poverty under the watch of the Tinubu-led APC administration.”
He warned that the prevailing hardship poses grave security risks, fueling tendencies toward criminal activities such as fraud, terrorism, kidnapping, cultism, drug abuse, and ritual killings.
Citing historical examples, the Waziri Adamawa recalled that most violent revolutions across the world — including the French Revolution, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the Arab Spring — were triggered by hunger and unbearable living conditions.
He linked similar frustrations to Nigeria’s 2020 #EndSARS protests.
“At home, it may not be out of place to argue that even the EndSARS protest was fueled by the traumatizing frustration of hunger and government insensitivity,” he stated.
Atiku also faulted the government for failing to provide solutions two years into its tenure, insisting that reforms being championed by the administration lack a human face.
“Whatever reform the Tinubu government might claim to be undertaking, the point remains that food insecurity is a daily occurrence nationwide. There is no government worth its salt that does not place priority on the welfare and security of the people,” he said.
He emphasized that reforms are meant to serve citizens and not the other way around, stressing that “the poor are increasingly dying of hunger while the majority of the living poor exist at the mercy of ill-advised policies.”
