PRESS STATEMENT YOU ARE DELUSIONAL — ATIKU REPLIES TINUBU Former Vice President and ADC presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has described President Bola Tinubu’s claim that the opposition created hunger and poverty as a delusional, shameless attempt to dodge responsibility for the misery his own government has inflicted on Nigerians. Atiku said a President cannot light the fire of hardship with his own policies, then blame the neighbours for the smoke. In a statement issued by Phrank Shaibu, Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Atiku said: “Mr President, blaming the opposition for hunger is either delusion or a staggering case of political amnesia. The APC governed Nigeria for eight years before you took office. You have added another three and a half years. Nigerians know who has been in power, and hardship did not begin when the opposition started talking about it. Stop insulting their intelligence and answer for your record. “The hardship your administration has brought upon Nigerians is real. You cannot deny it by blaming others. “Your decision to commission the unfinished Abuja to Kaduna Expressway from inside a stadium shows how far removed you are from the daily reality of Nigerians. A road cannot be completed with a speech or a ribbon cutting ceremony. “Which administration removed the petrol subsidy and watched the naira fall from about ₦471 to ₦1,329 to the dollar? “Which administration has presided over a rise in poverty that led the World Bank to estimate that 63 per cent of Nigerians will be below the national poverty line in 2026? Which administration extended the 2024 budget into 2025 while also operating a separate 2025 budget? “Which administration recorded ₦7.13 trillion under ‘energy security’ in 2024 and faces questions over ₦11.2 trillion in NNPC pipeline related spending? Nigerians deserve to know who received these sums and what was delivered. “Which administration must explain the $12.4 billion gap flagged in Nigeria’s external accounts for the first half of 2026? Which administration paid $22.5 million in ‘other charges’ on the Abu Dhabi financing facility? “Which administration is responsible for the killings, kidnappings and displacement that continue to terrorise communities? These are the questions Nigerians are asking while your government blames the opposition. “You cannot govern for three years, make life harder, and then blame others for describing the hardship. You asked who created the hunger. Nigerians are asking what you have done to end it. “The people will judge your government by the lives they are living, not by the excuses you offer at campaign rallies. “The 2027 presidential election will be a referendum on your record. Nigerians have felt the cost of your leadership in their homes, markets and communities. Their verdict is already clear: they have rejected your administration.” Phrank Shaibu Director of Strategic Communication ADC Presidential Campaign Council 24 October 2026

PRESS STATEMENT TINUBU’S PANIC CANNOT SANITISE THE APC’S CATASTROPHIC RECORD Dele Alake’s statement, issued at dawn today, is a desperate and hollow smokescreen from a campaign terrified of its own record. He accuses Atiku Abubakar and the ADC of a “devious plan,” AI manipulation and deepfakes, yet offers no evidence linking them to the alleged letter or any fabricated video. This is the APC’s familiar script: make a reckless accusation, dress it up as certainty, then hope Nigerians stop asking questions. Alake should produce the evidence: names, dates and forensic findings. Until then, his “fake news alert” is an empty political stunt. No conspiracy is needed to expose the APC. Its own failures are visible in every market, filling station and household. Petrol is around ₦1,400 a litre; diesel has topped ₦2,000; food inflation remains close to 20 per cent. More than half of Nigerians were living in poverty last year, according to the World Bank estimate reported by Reuters. These are the brutal consequences of an incompetent, callous and ruinous economic course. They are not fake news. Bola calls the vehicle near an APC billboard a “routine patrol.” Nigerians can still ask why a campaign billboard needed protection. He can dismiss the images, but he cannot dismiss the reports of supporters brought in from distant states and left sleeping on Kaduna’s streets. More troubling still, reports have emerged of an accident involving APC supporters travelling from Sokoto and also from Abuja to the rally. Details remain unconfirmed, and the APC must urgently account for the passengers’ safety. Making citizens endure long, hazardous journeys and sleep outdoors simply to create rally optics is political exploitation, not leadership. The APC cares more about the appearance of a crowd than the safety and dignity of the people it transports. Perhaps this also explains why Tinubu is campaigning in only 12 states. The same supporters must be moved from one rally to the next, along roads his government has left in disrepair. Those journeys will consume meaningful time. Tinubu knows what happens if the crowd fails to reach the next destination: he may be left addressing empty seats—or, as the saying goes, talking to the birds. A campaign that must transport its audience from state to state cannot pass off that audience as spontaneous nationwide support. You can hire buses, assemble a crowd and plaster the streets with billboards. You cannot hire consent. Nigerians have endured the APC’s punishing prices, shrinking incomes and broken promises. No parade, press statement or insult can conceal their growing rejection of this record. The APC’s failures are sweeping, painful and indefensible. Its boastful promises have collapsed into a miserable reality of expensive food, unaffordable transport and families forced to make do with less. Alake’s attack on Atiku will not reduce the cost of a meal by one naira. The real desperados are those clinging to power while the country burns. At the polls, Nigerians will reject this discredited record and defeat the APC. No volume of propaganda can talk the party out of the reckoning it has earned. Bola made life expensive; Atiku will make Nigeria affordable again! Phrank Shaibu Director of Strategic Communication ADC Presidential Campaign Council 24 October 2026