“It is even more troubling that this pattern did not begin today. During Ramadan last year, the President’s son, Seyi Tinubu, embarked on a widely publicised distribution of food items across parts of the North—an exercise presented as charity but clearly designed to test the waters of this now entrenched strategy of politicising hunger. What was then an experiment has now evolved into a full-blown policy of optics over substance.
“Let it be said without equivocation: Nigerians are not beggars to be pacified with periodic handouts while their livelihoods collapse.”
Atiku said the North, in particular, has been battered by rising food prices, unemployment, and insecurity that has crippled agricultural productivity.
“These are not problems that can be solved with trucks of rice; they require bold, coherent, and people-centred economic policies.
“A responsible government does not turn hunger into a public relations strategy. It builds systems that guarantee food security, stabilise the economy, empower farmers, and restore the purchasing power of citizens.
“What Nigerians demand is not charity for a moment, but prosperity that endures.”
Atiku warned that this descent into stomach infrastructure politics is not just dangerous, but corrosive to democracy.
“When hunger is weaponised, the freedom of citizens to make independent political choices is undermined.
“When poverty becomes a tool of control, governance itself loses its moral foundation.”
He called on Nigerians to reject the politics of survival and insist on leadership that respects their dignity, protects their welfare, and secures their future.
“The time has come to demand governance, not gestures.”
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