CNG

  The African Democratic Congress (ADC) on Friday accused President Bola Tinubu of prioritising the 2027 elections over the hardship faced by Nigerians, describing the Federal Government’s renewed push for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) transportation as a political gimmick that came three years too late. For Nigerians who have spent three years battling soaring transport fares, food prices and shrinking purchasing power, the party said, the sudden urgency to make transportation cheaper is unlikely to pass for genuine concern. In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC said the emergency meeting between Tinubu and state governors on reducing transportation costs was more a reaction to political pressure than a genuine response to hardship. “They left the people to suffer for three years, and now that the election approaches they suddenly realise that they could make transportation cheaper,” Abdullahi said. The party questioned why CNG buses were not rapidly deployed when Nigerians first began paying the heavy price of petrol subsidy removal, arguing that the government could have acted much earlier. The ADC said the timing became even more revealing after its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, put targeted subsidies and the cost of living at the centre of the national political debate. “Why did it take Atiku’s subsidy plan for this government to suddenly start running helter-skelter and to realise the need to bring down the cost of transportation?” Abdullahi asked. The opposition party maintained that the latest intervention showed the administration had options for cushioning the economic pain all along but chose not to deploy them until its electoral interests came under pressure. “No doubt, if these interventions are possible now, they were possible. The difference is that then, President Tinubu did not think it was necessary to support suffering citizens until now when he needs their votes,” the ADC said. It added that Nigerians could tell the difference between a government responding to their suffering and one responding to the prospect of electoral defeat. “A president who truly cares would not wait for three years and an approaching election before treating the cost of transportation as an emergency,” the party said. The ADC also accused the administration of failing to address insecurity, unemployment and the rising cost of living, saying the 2027 election had exposed the political consequences of those failures. “One thing is clear, President Tinubu is not suddenly responding to the suffering of Nigerians. He is responding to ADC and Atiku; he is responding to the impending reality of the 2027 election,” the party said.