Segun Dada, Social media aide to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has hit back at former Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his call of the President a “dull student,” calling it another case of self-aggrandisement by someone lacking self-awareness.
In a statement, Dada said no one copies from a “serial loser,” especially not a President who has won every election he has contested on his first attempt. He was responding to Atiku’s claim that he had suggested “production subsidies” to the administration and that the idea had now been copied, albeit in a different or wrong way.
Dada said any suggestions Atiku believes he made are “waiting for him in the abyss of neglect,” and that he can pick them up whenever he fulfils what Dada called his “fruitless ambition” of presiding over Nigeria, “maybe in his dreams.”
He argued that believing those suggestions were implemented because of the 30-day discount announced the previous day summed up why Atiku failed in his attempts to win the presidency: a failure to pay attention to details that matter.
If Atiku believes the administration has reintroduced subsidies of any kind, Dada said, he should wait a few weeks and ask who is paying for them, how much they have cost the national purse so far, and how they have affected daily crude production; which Dada said Atiku seeks to mismanage with his proposed “production subsidies.” He advised Atiku to return to the drawing board and compare the administration’s intervention with his own “economy-wrenching” proposal.
Dada also accused Atiku of continually showing disrespect toward the President’s office and of being inconsistent about age. He noted that Atiku recently said the President was 91, implying Tinubu is older, while also seeking to address him as a younger brother and claiming to be the younger of the two. Dada said Atiku should pull his thoughts together and act with consistency so his position can be clear.
He concluded that Nigeria is forging ahead, that the distractions Atiku has introduced will not derail the administration, and that the Renewed Hope journey will be completed by 2031, with President Tinubu leading the country to the “promised land.”