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The letter sent by
former vice president and the People’s Democratic Party presidential
aspirant, Atiku Abubakar, to President Goodluck Jonathan at the weekend
was “arrogantly insensitive to the mood of the nation and an attempt to
divert media attention from the Abuja bomb blasts which is a major
national tragedy,” a group, the National Forum for Democracy and
Economic Sustainability Initiative (NESI), has said.

In the letter, Mr
Abubakar warns that the recently unveiled budget 2011 could only worsen
the state of the nation’s economy and is predicated on consumption
without corresponding investments in critical infrastructure. The
budget, Mr Abubakar said, is “a recipe for economic disaster.”

However, in a
statement issued in Lagos yesterday, the NESI convener, Mabel Asuquo,
said though it is the right of every Nigerian to make informed inputs
on how the country is run, “the timing of that letter, and the marathon
follow-up media statement from the Atiku camp has reduced whatever the
intent of that letter was to a mere media spin.”

“It is apparent
that Mr Atiku’s campaign was not comfortable with the public outrage
that greeted the former vice president’s disappointing statement on the
Abuja bomb. His media handlers knew they needed a desperate spin and
that possibly informed the release of the so-called letter on the
budget to the media on Sunday night when the whole of the nation was
mourning the souls of the victims of the bomb blast,” Ms Asuquo said.

She said though
this is a campaign period when every politician is jostling for
attention, “it is immoral and politically reckless for an aspiring
leader to dance on the graves of innocent Nigerians cut down by
senseless criminals.”

The group however advised that the government should respond to the allegations raised by the former vice president.