Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on the federal government to address the economic hardship facing the nation in 2024.
Atiku made the call in his 2024 New Year message to the nation.
In the statement released on Sunday, Atiku offered “adulation to God and a heart full of gratitude” as Nigerians enter the new year.
He, however, acknowledged that 2023 was “definitely a challenging year” with important lessons for the future.
“The rising cost of food items, goods and services, the malfunction in our national economy and the degenerating state of our national and community security are all existential challenges that we have to face squarely in the New Year,” Atiku said.
He criticised the government’s “policy prescriptions,” stating, “Certainly, many families and businesses already know the intensity of the trying times that we are currently going through – though we could have taken a completely different pathway, had the government been smarter.”
Atiku called for a “well-thought vision of National Planning that will deliberately make the common people of Nigeria the centrepiece of our development.
“The Year 2024 is still new on its canvas, and so there is ample time for the current government to champion a pathway to addressing the acute hardship that Nigerians are going through,” he said
He urged the government to “show a clear direction of its policy projections and desist from the subsisting behaviour of groping in the dark.”
