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President Bola Tinubu has criticized opposition figures over their past roles in Nigeria’s economic reforms, particularly targeting former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s tenure as chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, NCP.
Speaking at a Renewed Hope Agenda meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday, Tinubu criticized the privatisation programme undertaken by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, in which Atiku played a key role
“The head Atiku was the chairman of the Privatisation Council of Nigeria at one time,” he observed.
Tinubu questioned the handling of key industrial assets such as the Ajaokuta Steel Company and other steel projects.
“They privatized the steel industry in Delta, is it working today? They privatized Ajaokuta, is it working today? Go on the list. They privatized another man’s political party, that one says no. Their job is done.”
The Eastern Updates reports that Atiku served as Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, the policy-making body overseeing Nigeria’s privatization program under the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE.
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has expressed his willingness to step aside for Peter Obi if the ex-Anambra governor emerges the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, in 2027.
During an interview on Arise News on Wednesday evening, Atiku was asked directly whether he would step aside if Obi wins the ADC presidential primary.
Atiku and Peter Obi are regarded as the front runners for ADC’s presidential ticket.
Others, such as Rabiu Kwankwaso and Rotimi Amaechi, are also believed to be in the running for the ADC ticket.
Asked if he would step down for Obi, if the former Labour Party presidential candidate gets the ADC ticket, Atiku said, “Yes, I will step aside for any winner.”
Asked if “any winner includes Peter Obi”, Atiku said, “Of course, if he is a contender, why not?”
Further asked if it would not be difficult for him to do so since Obi was his vice presidential running mate, Atiku said, “What is difficult there? It is democracy. It is either you go through consensus or you go through election. You emerge through consensus or emerge through the electoral process.”
Peter Obi told a national television audience Monday that no other candidate in the 2027 presidential race can offer northern Nigeria what he intends to deliver — a declaration that opened his most direct pitch yet to the region that has historically determined who wins the presidency.
Speaking on Arise TV, the Labour Party flag-bearer and former Anambra governor framed the North not as a political problem to be managed but as an economic opportunity waiting for a government with the will to unlock it. He argued that Nigeria’s greatest untapped asset sits in the region’s agricultural potential, and that a committed administration could generate more revenue from farming than the country currently extracts from oil.
“Nobody can do what I intend to do in the North. We will change the North. Our greatest asset as a country is in the North. We can make more money from agriculture than we make from oil,” Obi said.
The pitch was pointed and deliberate. Obi has faced persistent questions about his ability to build a northern coalition strong enough to compete in a general election, given that his 2023 showing — while impressive for a third-party candidate — did not produce the cross-regional breadth that a winning coalition requires. Monday’s appearance was an attempt to address that question directly, on his own terms.
He pushed back against the prevailing assumption that northern support must be brokered through established political heavyweights. Asked whether he would need the backing of figures such as Nasir El-Rufai and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso to make genuine inroads in the region, Obi said he welcomed collaboration but rejected the transactional model of Nigerian politics in which a few prominent individuals deliver blocs of voters.
“I will work with them so they can support the process, but Nigeria is bigger than individuals,” he said.
