The Presidency has torn into former President Goodluck Jonathan, accusing him of driving Nigeria’s economy into the ground and warning him not to fall for plots to draft him into the 2027 presidential race.
In a fiery statement, Presidential aide Bayo Onanuga said Jonathan’s time in power left a trail of economic disaster.
“We cannot forget in a hurry how his regime, devoid of any clear economic agenda, engaged in frivolous spending, ran the economy aground, and put the country in dire straits. The downturn that President Tinubu is working very hard to overcome actually began under Jonathan,” Onanuga declared.
The attack came after ex-Minister Jerry Gana boasted that Jonathan would contest in 2027 and send President Tinubu “back to Lagos.”
The Presidency hit back, branding the idea “absurd” and “delusional.”
The statement read, “We should caution former President Jonathan to be wary of the PDP’s sugar-coated cheerleaders. Politicians of Jerry Gana’s ilk merely want to lure him into the race to satisfy their personal, political, religious, and ethnic interests. They will abandon him midstream, as they did in 2015, and leave Gentleman Jonathan in the lurch.”
Though conceding Jonathan had the right to contest, the Presidency said Nigerians would never forget his “abysmal performance in office.”
Onanuga rolled out damning figures: Jonathan inherited $66 billion in 2010 but left less than $30 billion in reserves and slashed the Excess Crude Account from $20 billion to $2 billion by 2015. By the end of his rule, the Federal Government could not pay salaries, while 28 states owed workers huge arrears.
In contrast, the Presidency boasted of Tinubu’s “bold reforms” like fuel subsidy removal, unifying exchange rates, and reviving investor confidence.
“In plain language, the nation has turned the corner. Nigerians are beginning to reap the gains of Tinubu’s reforms. The PDP broke the economy; President Tinubu is fixing it,” the statement fired.
The message was clear: Jonathan may dream of 2027, but the Presidency insists Nigerians won’t hand him the keys to the economy again.
