He also advocated the restoration of subsidy on petroleum and other strategically important products as part of measures to shield Nigerians and productive sectors from severe economic shocks.
“Some candidates who campaigned in the last election to remove subsidy are now reversing themselves without even regretting their earlier display of ignorance and lack of compassion for the people,” Hashim said.
“Atiku’s recant on subsidy removal without an apology is dishonesty. If you change your position because circumstances or evidence have changed, tell Nigerians why you changed. There is nothing wrong with changing your mind. What is wrong is pretending that you never held the position in the first place.”
Naija News recalls that all three top presidential candidates in the 2023 election, Atiku, the then-Labor Party candidate Peter Obi, and President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), promised to remove the fuel subsidy in their respective campaigns.
However, candidates of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, were among those who opposed the policy.
Hashim noted that Atiku had gone ahead of Tinubu in declaring he would remove the subsidy on petroleum products. He said it was unfortunate that the former Vice President has now declared the opposite of what he once supported.
“The truth of the matter is that Atiku, before Tinubu, on the National political scene, has been the father of the idea of subsidy removal and wholesale privatization in this republic, he and his so-called economic team. We combatted them vigorously during the early period of the Obasanjo government,” he said.
Hashim recalled that in 1999, when Atiku was vice president and headed the government’s economic team under Obasanjo, the administration increased the prices of petroleum products and removed subsidy.
He said he and some members of the Peoples Democratic Party publicly opposed the decision at the time.
According to him, Alhaji Iro Dan Musa, who was then PDP Deputy National Chairman; Harry Marshall, National Vice Chairman, South South; Abubakar Magaji, National Vice Chairman, North Central; Emmanuel Ibeshi, National Publicity Secretary; and himself, who was then Deputy National Publicity Secretary, jointly addressed a press conference against the increase.
He added that the National Assembly also passed resolutions against the policy, forcing the executive to reverse its decision.
“We opposed subsidy removal when it was politically inconvenient to do so. We did not suddenly discover the suffering of Nigerians because another election is approaching,” Hashim said.
He maintained that his long-standing opposition to subsidy removal was therefore not an electoral strategy.
“We opposed subsidy removal when it was politically inconvenient to do so. We did not suddenly discover the suffering of Nigerians because another election is approaching,” Hashim said.
He said the historical record demonstrated that his opposition to subsidy removal was not an electoral strategy.
Hashim also berated certain media outlets for failing to sufficiently scrutinize changing political positions.
He claimed that politicians with greater access to media channels can adopt concepts initially proposed by less influential political figures and later claim them as their own.
“They are devoid of originality, and their supporters in the media fail to hold them accountable.
Rather, they elevate these corrupt and dishonest politicians as leading candidates.”
“Only God knows how many of our ideas they would pirate before the election and use their big megaphone to amplify,” the presidential candidate stressed.
