Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has scored the Nigerian economy low, following the latest Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Household Expectations Survey.
Speaking on Saturday through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) said an economy in which citizens are abandoning plans to buy homes, cars and basic household assets cannot credibly be advertised as one on the path to prosperity.
Atiku described the survey as a damning verdict on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic policies, saying the CBN’s own numbers have stripped the government’s economic propaganda of whatever credibility it had left.
According to the survey, buying conditions stood at just 28.7 points for motor vehicles, 28.9 for consumer durables, and 30.0 for buildings and landed property. Even more disturbing, willingness to purchase vehicles fell to 18.7 points, while buildings and landed property stood at only 19.2 points.
“These are not figures manufactured by the opposition. They are the verdict of Nigerian households captured by the Central Bank under President Tinubu’s own government.
“What the figures tell us is simple: Nigerians are being priced out of decent living. A home is becoming a fantasy. A car is becoming a luxury. Household appliances are increasingly beyond reach. Families are exhausting their incomes on food, transportation, electricity, school fees and other necessities, leaving practically nothing for savings, investment or asset acquisition.
“Only recently, the Jollof Index told us what Tinubu’s economy has done to the Nigerian kitchen. Now, the CBN survey is telling us what it has done to the Nigerian dream.
“The numbers make the tragedy even starker. According to the latest SBM Jollof Index, the ingredients required to prepare a single pot of jollof rice for a family of five now cost an average of ₦29,578. Think about what that means for a worker earning the ₦70,000 minimum wage: one ordinary pot of jollof rice can swallow more than 40 per cent of an entire month’s salary, before rent, transportation, electricity, school fees and healthcare are considered. And this is the same economy in which Nigerians are now postponing the purchase of homes, cars and basic household assets because there is simply no disposable income left. Tinubu has not merely made life more expensive; his policies are steadily pricing ordinary Nigerians out of food, comfort, asset ownership and the basic dignity of a decent life.
“Tinubu first stole jollof rice from the family dining table. Now, his economy is taking away the house in which the table should stand and the car with which the breadwinner should get to work.”
Atiku said it was particularly insulting for the Tinubu administration to continue celebrating headline macroeconomic indicators while the personal economies of Nigerian families deteriorate.
He said President Tinubu should stop governing Nigeria through PowerPoint economics, stressing that “The real economy is the Nigerian family’s pocket, and that pocket is increasingly empty.
“A government under which families struggle to afford jollof rice, workers cannot contemplate buying cars and millions see home ownership disappearing beyond the horizon cannot proclaim prosperity.
“Tinubu has not merely increased the cost of living. He has increased the cost of dreaming.
“Government officials can celebrate GDP growth, foreign reserves and other statistics from air-conditioned conference rooms, but ordinary Nigerians have become unwilling economists, calculating every cup of rice, every litre of fuel and every transport fare before deciding what their families can afford.
“Between official statistics and empty cooking pots, the cooking pots do not lie.”
He said the collapse in household purchasing power also threatens the wider economy because when citizens cannot consume, businesses cannot sell; when businesses cannot sell, production falls; and when production falls, jobs and livelihoods disappear.
“An economy is not successful merely because government officials can quote favourable statistics. An economy succeeds when citizens can work, earn, eat, save, invest and progressively improve their standard of living.
“Before there is GDP, there must be dinner. Before there is prosperity, there must be purchasing power. And before a government congratulates itself on reform, ordinary citizens must be able to see and feel improvement in their own lives.”
Atiku said Nigerians deserve an economy where work produces dignity and income creates opportunity, rather than one where every household ambition is sacrificed merely to survive until the next payday.
