Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has characterised 2025 as “one of the most punishing years in our recent history,” blaming President Bola Tinubu’s administration for economic mismanagement, political recklessness, and what he described as a lack of compassion in governance.
In a New Year message shared on his official X handle on Thursday, Atiku said Nigerians went through “economic suffocation” under the All Progressives Congress (APC), arguing that the year laid bare the “incompetence and policy bankruptcy” of the Tinubu-led government.
“For millions of long-suffering Nigerians, the only consolation is that 2025… has come to an end,” Atiku said. “It was a year defined by economic suffocation, political recklessness, and governance without empathy under the All Progressives Congress administration.”
He accused the government of operating “for months without a functional budget,” while depending on propaganda and “borrowing recklessly,” a development he said dragged the country “to the brink of economic collapse.”
According to Atiku, “Nothing better captures the decay of this government than the scandal of a forged tax law, shamelessly branded a ‘reform,’” adding that the President’s refusal to allow proper legislative and judicial scrutiny of what he called “clearly a criminal act” was alarming.
“A government that begins reform with forgery cannot end with prosperity,” he stated.
The former Vice President further alleged that the APC deliberately undermined Nigeria’s democratic structure in 2025, claiming the ruling party worked “systematically to deform our multiparty democracy into a de facto one-party state through coercion, intimidation, and state capture.”
He also accused the administration of plunging the country deeper into debt while claiming to have achieved revenue benchmarks, even as insecurity escalated nationwide.
“Kidnappings, abductions, and violent crimes surged, affecting citizens, young and old alike,” Atiku said. “Lives were lost, livelihoods destroyed, and communities terrorized, while government assurances rang hollow.”
On the economic front, Atiku said rising unemployment, labour disputes, and the collapse of small and medium enterprises marked the year, noting that “industries shut down,” “workers were sent home,” and “hunger spread.”
Despite the challenges, he said Nigeria endured “not because of government competence, but because of the resilience of its people.”
Describing the statement as “one of the most painful New Year messages I have ever written,” Atiku blamed what he termed the “callous and soulless policies” of the Tinubu administration.
“Sacrifice is patriotic—but it becomes cruel when demanded by leaders who live extravagantly,” he said, adding that “leadership without shared pain is not leadership; it is exploitation.”
He warned that “a government capable of forging or tampering with laws cannot be trusted to conduct free and fair elections in 2027,” while urging Nigerians to reject despair and pursue change “peacefully and decisively, through the ballot.”
Atiku also dismissed the administration’s anti-corruption campaign as “a facade; selective, vindictive, and politically motivated,” calling on Nigerians to rise above religious and ethnic divisions and embrace unity as “the path to rescue.”