‘Weaponisation Of Hunger’ – Atiku Slams Tinubu Over Rice Distribution  In The North

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has strongly described the distribution of food items and palliatives as instruments of political manipulation in Northern Nigeria.

This position was contained in a statement issued Friday in Abuja by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, who described the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, flagging off the distribution of 100 trucks of rice and ₦1.2 billion in palliatives to northern states and the FCT as not an act of compassion, but a calculated political performance staged on the altar of mass hardship.

He said: “What Nigerians are witnessing today is the tragic normalisation of poverty under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Families can no longer afford basic meals, inflation has ravaged household incomes, and millions are being pushed daily into extreme deprivation.

“Yet, instead of addressing the structural causes of this crisis, the government has chosen the path of optics—distributing food in carefully choreographed ceremonies while the underlying suffering deepens.

“Since 2023, Northern farmers have suffered declining productivity due to the Tinubu administration’s policy failures and its inability to secure farmlands. Vast agricultural belts have been abandoned to insecurity, leaving farmers displaced and food supply chains severely weakened.

“Ironically, the same government and its promoters now seek to exploit the resulting hardship by turning food into a campaign tool. What the North truly needs is genuine, sustainable food security policies—not campaign lunch packs wrapped in party insignia.

“It is even more troubling that this pattern did not begin today. During Ramadan last year, the President’s son, Seyi Tinubu, embarked on a widely publicised distribution of food items across parts of the North—an exercise presented as charity but clearly designed to test the waters of this now entrenched strategy of politicising hunger. What was then an experiment has now evolved into a full-blown policy of optics over substance.

“Let it be said without equivocation: Nigerians are not beggars to be pacified with periodic handouts while their livelihoods collapse.”

Atiku said the North, in particular, has been battered by rising food prices, unemployment, and insecurity that has crippled agricultural productivity.

“These are not problems that can be solved with trucks of rice; they require bold, coherent, and people-centred economic policies.

“A responsible government does not turn hunger into a public relations strategy. It builds systems that guarantee food security, stabilise the economy, empower farmers, and restore the purchasing power of citizens.

“What Nigerians demand is not charity for a moment, but prosperity that endures.”

Atiku Abubakar, however warned that this descent into stomach infrastructure politics is not just dangerous—it is corrosive to democracy.

“When hunger is weaponised, the freedom of citizens to make independent political choices is undermined.

“When poverty becomes a tool of control, governance itself loses its moral foundation.”

He called on Nigerians to reject the politics of survival and insist on leadership that respects their dignity, protects their welfare, and secures their future.

“The time has come to demand governance, not gestures.” (Daily trust)