Presidency to Atiku: Take Your Economic Blueprint to Campaign Trail, Tinubu Will Remain Focused on Reforms

**•Keyamo, Dare fault former VP for referring to Tinubu as ‘Bola’

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Presidency yesterday told the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to take his economic proposals to Nigerians on the campaign trail rather than attempt to dictate how President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should govern the country.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communication, Dr. Sunday Dare, who made the assertion, also faulted the former Vice President for repeatedly referring to President Tinubu simply as “Bola” during his press briefing in Abuja on Friday.

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, has also criticised Atiku for repeatedly referring to the President by his first name.

Keyamo said Atiku’s reference to the President as “Bola” was disrespectful and failed to accord the office of the President the dignity he said it deserved.

Similarly, Dare, in a reaction posted on his verified X handle, @SundayDareSD, described Atiku’s intervention as “unsolicited homework”, arguing that the ADC candidate should concentrate on selling his programmes to the electorate ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

Atiku had on Friday called on President Tinubu to take immediate measures to reduce petrol prices, arguing that the experience of petrol subsidy removal should not be repeated in the power sector.

But Dare rejected Atiku’s approach, saying opposition politics did not confer on a presidential candidate the authority to issue directives to an incumbent President.

“Alhaji Atiku Abubakar convened a press conference in Abuja and chose, once again, to address the President of the Federal Republic as ‘Bola.’ He issued instructions. He dictated a truncated timetable. He presumed to tell a sitting President how governance should be run in the last months of a mandate already given by the Nigerian people.

“That is not opposition. It is insolence”, Dare said.

According to the presidential aide, Atiku should channel his policy propositions towards persuading voters rather than presenting them as instructions to the Tinubu administration.

“It is election season. If Alhaji Atiku has a message for Nigerians, the proper place for it is the campaign trail, not a briefing room from which he talks down to the Head of State”, he said.

Dare also defended the administration’s economic reforms, arguing that President Tinubu was undertaking difficult structural changes necessitated by longstanding weaknesses in the economy.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is doing the heavy, foundational lifting required to restructure an economy crippled by decades of structural inertia and subsidy haemorrhaging. That work is difficult. It is also necessary.

“Transient discomfort does not cancel the duty of reform, and it does not confer on any defeated candidate the right to issue decrees from the sidelines”, he said.

The presidential aide further challenged Atiku’s criticism of the administration’s fiscal policies and his proposed government intervention in petrol pricing, describing the ADC candidate’s position as politically motivated.

Atiku had proposed what he called a transparent “production subsidy” for petroleum products refined locally and sold to Nigerians, saying such support should have a fixed spending limit, National Assembly approval and independent auditing.

Dare, however, questioned the former Vice President’s record, particularly his role in the privatisation programme during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.

Dare also brought the controversy surrounding the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project into the exchange, saying Atiku should address questions arising from the long-running dispute before lecturing the administration on economic management.

Also reacting to the remarks, Keyamo said Atiku should recognise the need to maintain respect for the presidency despite political differences.

“The continuous reference to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu @officialABAT by His Excellency, ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar in his Press Conference earlier today as ‘Bola’ is very disrespectful and discourteous,” Keyamo said.