AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT TINUBU: YOU SIGNED IT YOURSELF
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
In Part 8, we followed the dates of Tinubu’s fuel confusion. Today we hand the President a document he cannot deny, because he signed it himself. Read it, and you will understand why even Tinubu once believed only Atiku could do what Nigeria now needs.
Mr President,
In November 2016, when Atiku Abubakar turned 70, you signed a letter to him. You addressed him as your dear brother. And you wrote these words: Nigeria needs you to continue to make life more meaningful.
Nobody put those words in your mouth. They are yours, over your own signature.
You were right the first time.
THE MAN YOU KNEW
You did not write those words to a stranger. In 2007, you supported Atiku for the presidency, on the platform of the Action Congress that the two of you co-founded. You supported him because you knew there was a great deposit of vitality in the man, and because you knew Nigeria needed him.
You knew that during the struggle for June 12, Atiku stood with the champions of democracy, lost the police orderlies who guarded him, and was forced into exile. You knew that in 2003, when the federal might moved to take Lagos by force, it was Atiku who stood in the way.
And you knew the economic record. As Vice President, he chaired the National Economic Council and the National Council on Privatisation in the years when Nigeria’s economy grew from 58 billion dollars to 270 billion dollars, when reserves rose from about 3.7 billion dollars to about 45 billion dollars, and when Nigeria walked out of the Paris Club. Those are the reasons you wrote what you wrote.
WHAT CHANGED, MR PRESIDENT?
So how did the man you said Nigeria needed in 2016 become, in your mouth in 2026, a man of serious ignorance?
Atiku has not changed. He still believes in strong states and a lean centre. He still believes the economy must produce what it consumes. He still believes deregulation must be phased and cushioned, so that those who bear the pain receive the gain. He still believes the welfare and the security of the citizen are the first duties of any government. If anything, his plans are sharper now than when you praised him: a subsidy that follows the barrel, a 10 billion dollar programme for young entrepreneurs, state police for rural policing, local government funds paid straight to the councils.
Your view of him did not change because of anything he did. It changed only when he stood between you and a second term.
You dismissed his commitment to relief as ignorance in August. In September you called subsidy ruinous and promised that fares would fall from October 1. They did not. In October your government offered 66 naira off a litre through an app, then stretched it to the end of the month and called it a 30-day discount. Mr President, if relief is ignorance, why is your government now practising it?
And while we read old documents: on 11 January 2012, as leader of the opposition, you published an article condemning the abrupt removal of the fuel subsidy as a tax on the people. Eleven years later you did exactly that in a single sentence. President Jonathan, when the people protested, listened and stepped back within two weeks. You never stepped back at all.
A SENTENCE AND A CHOICE
On 29 May 2023, you spoke as a sworn President. You were not proposing. You were pronouncing. By nightfall your words had become hardship in every home, and nobody had been consulted.
Atiku speaks as a candidate. He commands nothing. He has published his plans in advance and placed them before the people to examine and to own, because they speak to the pain the people carry. That is exactly what a candidate is supposed to do. Your complaint against him, when the noise is cleared away, is that he is campaigning in the open. That is not ignorance, Mr President. That is democracy.
One man handed Nigerians a sentence. The other hands them a choice.
THREE QUESTIONS, AND THREE ANSWERS
Permit the suffering Nigerian to put three questions to you. And permit us to set beside each one the answer that Atiku has already published.
First: your government says the removal of subsidy freed 15.8 trillion naira between June 2023 and December 2025, and your own Finance Minister has admitted those savings were absorbed by debt servicing. Where is the road, the hospital or the school the people were promised in exchange for their pain? Atiku’s answer: trace every naira of those savings, and replace the import racket with a subsidy that follows the barrel, capped, budgeted and audited.
Second: on 19 September you told Nigerians that from October 1 they would see measurable reductions in transportation costs. The fares did not fall. Who will answer for that promise? Atiku’s answer: cheaper fuel refined at home, land borders reopened to legitimate trade, and the eastern ports revived, so that the cost of moving goods comes down for good, not for a season.
Third: when the Catholic Bishops told you the nation was bleeding, you told them it was not. Amnesty had already counted at least 10,217 Nigerians killed by gunmen in two years in seven states. SBM has since counted 7,825 abducted in twelve months. How many more must bleed before the bleeding is admitted? Atiku’s answer: a pledge to confront insecurity within his first year, more and better paid security personnel, intelligence-led operations, and state police for rural policing.
These are not the questions of a political opponent. They are the questions of a mother, a farmer, a graduate and a pensioner. You have not answered them. Atiku has.
That is the whole difference between a government and a candidate in this election. The government has had three years, a budget and every agency of state, and it has produced a discount with an expiry date. The candidate has had none of those things, and he has produced a plan.
THE LETTER THE PEOPLE HAVE READ
Mr President, the suffering Nigerian has read your letter too. The woman in the Adamawa market has read it. The Tiv farmer who buried his brothers has read it. The parents of Papiri have read it. The trader in Onitsha has read it. The tailor in Kano has read it. The graduate selling recharge cards in Ibadan has read it.
And they agree with you. Nigeria needs Atiku to make life more meaningful. In 2016 you wrote it as a compliment. In 2027 it has become a necessity.
Your name will be on the ballot on 16 January 2027. So will your letter. And on that day, they intend to take your advice.
Yours, for the suffering Nigerian,
Coming next, the final part, Part 10 of 10: HE HAS DONE THE JOB BEFORE. Tinubu wrote that Nigeria needs Atiku. In the last part of this series, we lay out the full record and the full 12-point plan, and show why no other candidate on the ballot comes close.
#Awalokan #Atiku2027 #TheNarrativeForce
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General,
The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
12 October 2026
