The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has said the 90-day cost-of-living relief announced by the National Economic Council (NEC) was meant to hoodwink Nigerians into voting for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027.
The Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council (ADC-PCC), Phrank Shaibu, at a press conference in Abuja on Friday, said that after three and a half years of hardship, President Bola Tinubu’s government is offering hungry Nigerians a promise of affordable food.
According to Shaibu, ‘This is election bait; the message is simple: vote first; relief later.”
He called on Nigerians to refuse the bait and judge the APC government by the three and a half years they have already lived through.
The presidential campaign spokesperson listed the five priorities the 90-day relief plan would tackle to include food affordability, tax harmonisation, completion of important projects, removal of investment bottlenecks and household support, stating that these were the very problems Nigerians have been demanding that the APC government should address since it took office.
He noted that families have cut meals; workers have spent more of their wages getting to work, while manufacturers struggle to produce, and businesses have closed.
Shaibu told Tinubu that he cannot erase three and a half years of hardship with a 90-day announcement.
“When he removed the petrol subsidy, the impact on transport, food and production costs was predictable. Protection for vulnerable households should have come alongside that decision.
“Instead, the government imposed the costs immediately and left Nigerians to wait for the benefits. Now, after years of hardship, it has suddenly discovered that people need affordable food.
“A government cannot put a 90-day deadline on hunger, the cost-of-living crisis and insecurity and call it an economic policy,” he added.
Shaibu noted that President Tinubu announced in his Independence Day broadcast that the NNPC would be offering a petrol discount promotion from October 1, but stated that when he visited the NNPC retail stations, he bought petrol at ₦1,405 per litre.
“With barely a week left before the offer expires, my experience as a customer was simple: a promise of relief, and a higher price at the pump.
“If NNPC says motorists can access a discount through an app, it must explain why customers arriving at its stations were told there was none.
“How many customers received the discount? At which stations? How many litres were sold at the reduced price?” Shaibu asked.
He stated that Tinubu is expected in Kaduna on Saturday to launch his re-election campaign, but recalled that the president has not visited the state when an Army drone, on December 3, 2023, struck civilians gathered for a Maulud celebration in Tudun Biri, killing at least 85 people, or when, in September 2024, another military airstrike killed at least 24 civilians in Giwa
“When families were burying their dead, searching for their children and clearing wreckage from their homes, Kaduna needed the attention of its president.
“Yet the presidency’s account of Tinubu’s September 2025 visit listed a wedding and a courtesy call.
“Now, with an election approaching, he is returning to launch a campaign,” Atiku’s media aide stated, adding that Tinubu can find his way to Kaduna for a wedding or to seek votes, but he was absent when grieving families needed their president.
He told President Tinubu that before asking Kaduna for another mandate, he should explain what has been done for the victims of Tudun Biri, investigations into civilian deaths and how his government would protect communities still threatened by abduction.
Shaibu disclosed that Atiku has made the cost-of-living crisis central to his campaign and pledged to make Nigeria affordable again.
“Tinubu’s government is trying to appropriate that message with a plan that runs through the election. Nigerians should not trade three and a half years of lived hardship for three months of promises,” he stated.
