Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, says Nigeria has all negative indices in terms of insecurity, poverty and unemployment under President Muhammadu Buhari.

The former vice president said since the return of democracy in 1998/99, Nigeria has never found itself in such a very critical point in our history.

“Today, we have had all the negative indices. Today, we are all disunited in the nation. We have never experienced this level of poverty,” Mr Abubakar said. “We have never experienced this state of insecurity. We have never experienced this level of unemployment. We have recognised all these negative development in our history.”

Mr Abubakar disclosed this while speaking at the 2022 Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Bar Association in Lagos.

Nigerian displaced India to become world’s poverty capital in 2018. However, the Buhari regime has maintained that his regime has done well regardless of criticisms.

Last week, presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu said Mr Buhari runs the most “compassionate government” in the world, claiming that even Americans are now begging for food due to global economic hardship.

“So I’m saying to you the government of Nigeria is perhaps the most compassionate you can ever have anywhere” Mr Garba told Trust TV in an interview on Friday night. “This subsidy can be removed today.  But what would live be for the lowest paid employees for instance.”

“Subsidy is not the best for our circumstances but it has given this country what other countries don’t have,”  Mr Shehu said. “Look at what is happening in other countries. That is why it is good to compare. Go to the United States of America, it is not the black man, even white man beg for food,” he added.