Phrank Shaibu, the Special Assistant on Public Communications to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar,  has described President Bola Tinubu’s plan to hand out ₦8,000 to 12 million households for six months as a joke and an attempt to divert public funds.

Shaibu said in a statement on Thursday that Tinubu’s plan to spend $800m on palliatives was reminiscent of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s conditional cash transfer and COVID-19 intervention initiative which saw politicians keeping food items and provisions in their homes while poor Nigerians went hungry.

He said Buhari’s interventionist programmes only ended up making Nigerians poorer as shown in reports released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

“After announcing the removal of petrol subsidy without proper planning, Tinubu has asked for the approval of $800m loan which he claims will be disbursed to 12 million households for six months at ₦8,000 for each household per month. This is a continuation of the scam of the All Progressives Congress,” said Shaibu.

“According to statistics, a Nigerian household as at 2019 counted on an average of 5.06 members. So, with Tinubu’s uninspiring plan, each individual in a household will get ₦1,600 per month or ₦53 per day. What should they do with it? Use the money to buy sachet water or a cup of boiled groundnut on a daily basis? And this is the man they claim transformed the economy of Lagos State? This must be a joke or a more sinister attempt to divert public funds.”

Shaibu also argued that the Tinubu administration lacked a clear economic policy apart from taxing Nigerians.

He said: “Tinubu boasted that he would ‘develop Nigeria’s economy’ like that of Lagos but this was all a scam. Statistics show that over 70% of Lagos revenue comes from income tax paid by private companies which had been in Lagos for decades due to its status as Nigeria’s former capital.

“His only plan is to tax Nigerians to death as he did in Lagos and that is why the people of Lagos rejected him in the last election. Tinubu promised to turn Nigeria’s economy into a $1 trillion economy but it is all a scam and can never be achieved with his brand of ‘agberonomics’.

He added: “The so-called palliatives that Tinubu seeks to share to the poor are just another avenue to divert public funds. For years, the Nigerian government has rejected calls to publish the list of the beneficiaries of the so-called palliatives but this has never been done because it is all a scam.

“Tinubu should stop trying to deceive Nigerians who are still suffering from the effect of his lacklustre economic policies.

“Let no one make any mistakes about it, the planned palliative is Trader Moni 2.0. The scheme is nothing but a means to use public funds to prosecute political campaigns and objectives. It is even more telling that the current government is contemplating the initiative when there is high expectation that the presidential election tribunal is set to give judgement in the controversial election that brought Tinubu into government.”