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By 247ureports.com
African Democratic Congress (ADC) vice-presidential candidate Rotimi Amaechi has directly blamed President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies for the death of his mother, saying the rising cost of medication under the administration made it impossible for him to continue affording her drugs.
The Claim
Speaking Friday on Channels Television’s “Politics Today,” Amaechi, a former Rivers State governor and ex-Minister of Transportation, said his mother was healthy before Tinubu assumed office in 2023. “Before Tinubu became President, my mother was healthy. After he became president, it was difficult for me to buy drugs for my mother,” he said. Asked directly by the interviewer whether he was attributing his mother’s death specifically to Tinubu’s policies, Amaechi replied, “Of course,” adding elsewhere in the interview, “The policies Tinubu introduced are killing people. I lost my mother because of the policies. We have lost people.” He went further still, telling the interviewer, “Why do you think my mother could live up to [her advanced age]? Tinubu was the reason.”
When the interviewer noted his mother’s advanced age, Amaechi maintained that her death should not be attributed to age alone, insisting she had remained healthy until medication costs became unmanageable under the current economic climate.
A Personal Loss
Amaechi’s mother, Mary Amaechi, died this year; reports place her death on July 16, 2026, with her age reported variously as 89 or 92 across different outlets, a discrepancy 247ureports.com could not resolve as of this report. The ADC had earlier issued condolences to Amaechi over his mother’s passing.
Broader Criticism of the Administration
Beyond his mother’s death, Amaechi used the appearance to press broader criticisms of the Tinubu administration’s economic record. He questioned the whereabouts of revenue generated from the removal of the petrol subsidy, asking Nigerians to consider whether they were seeing tangible benefits from the policy, and noted that some workers earning around N70,000 monthly were spending nearly their entire income on transportation. He also expressed doubt that the policies were benefiting even wealthier Nigerians, saying, “The real people benefiting from this so-called independence is the rich. The poor continues to suffer, and it’s worse in Tinubu’s government.” Separately, Amaechi alleged that corruption under the current administration was more glaring than under the late President Muhammadu Buhari, and criticized the administration’s infrastructure record.
Response
As of this report, Bayo Onanuga, spokesperson for President Tinubu, did not respond to calls seeking comment on Amaechi’s claim, according to one outlet’s reporting. Separately, Wike has publicly pushed back on Amaechi in an unrelated exchange, telling him he “spent 24 years in power without empowering your people” — though it remains unclear whether that remark was made specifically in response to the mother’s-death comments or as part of a broader political rivalry between the two men.
Amaechi’s remarks add to an intensifying 2027 campaign-season debate over the human cost of Tinubu’s subsidy-removal and currency-unification reforms, running parallel to criticism this week from Atiku Abubakar over Nigeria’s N166.79 trillion public debt and sarcastic public commentary following Tinubu’s Independence Day address declaring the country’s reform period concluded.
