The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, has described as fake, the claim by the presidency that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) lifted a visa ban on Nigerians, saying President Bola Tinubu has concluded plans to unleash a regime of propaganda as a policy in Nigeria.

The Star recalls that the presidency, last week, said UAE had lifted the ban after Tinubu met with the president of the Middle Eastern country, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

A UAE official later debunked the claims by the presidency, saying the visa ban on Nigerians is still in effect.

Speaking on the development, Atiku, in a statement issued on Sunday by his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the claim of the lifting of the visa ban by the UAE was just the “tip of the iceberg” of Tinubu’s plans to unleash a regime of propaganda as a policy in the coming days.

Shaibu noted that Tinubu had already appointed over 15 media aides with the sole aim of pushing misinformation as a policy and distracting Nigerians from the “deep pains his administration has caused them”.

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Atiku’s aide said: “From information available to us, Bola Tinubu is set to push propaganda to overdrive as he heads out for the United Nations General Assembly. He will claim to have attracted foreign investments amounting to $100bn but will fail to provide key details. It is all propaganda. It is all a load of baloney.

“In India, he claimed they had received pledges of over $14bn just as his predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari, claimed in 2018 that he had secured pledges of up to $6bn. This is nothing but audio investments.

“Last month, the NNPC claimed to have obtained a loan of $3bn with which it would help stabilise the naira. We raised the alarm that it was all a ruse to deceive Nigerians. Now, we have been justified as the naira is now approaching $1/N1,000 on the black market.

“After his trip to the UAE, Tinubu claimed the visa ban had been lifted immediately. Now, they have shifted the goalpost after the UAE authorities revealed that the news was false. This is the sort of embarrassment Nigeria will continue to attract in this season of balablu.

“The report by FTSE revealed that Tinubu’s so-called FX unification policy was failing and Nigeria was degraded from frontier market to unclassified. Having failed to bring economic rebirth, he has now recruited over 15 media aides instead of recruiting more economic experts.”

Shaibu further stated that the federal government failed to put adequate measures in place after the removal of the subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol.

He added: “Tinubu removed the petrol subsidy without any plan whatsoever and decided to hand over a few bags of rice to millions of poor Nigerians. Till date, the minimum wage remains N30,000 or $31 per month based on the parallel market exchange rate.

“This is the punishment Nigerians are facing because the election management body failed to do its work on February 25. This is a manifestation of the words of the Holy Book, which says when the righteous lead, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people suffer.

“In the meantime, we ask Nigerians to remain patient as the judicial authorities do their job in righting the electoral fraud that has brought Nigerians to their knees.”

The Star