The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has lamented the impact of the cost-of-living crisis in the country, saying it is driving young Nigerians to sell their kidneys.
Atiku affirmed that he had heard what he described as disturbing stories about the extent to which young Nigerians are being driven simply to survive.
“Perhaps the most horrifying are the growing reports of young people selling parts of their bodies: kidneys in particular, in desperate attempts to raise money,” he decried. “Young people should be selling dreams, ideas and innovation, not their body organs.”
Atiku noted that when the cost-of-living crisis becomes unbearable, desperation begins to make the unthinkable appear like an option.
He stressed that this should offend the conscience of every Nigerian, pointing out that under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, almost everything required to live with dignity, including food, transport, rent, school fees, medicine, and electricity, is becoming more expensive by the day.
“Yet young Nigerians are reportedly being driven to sell their kidneys for as little as ₦1.7 million. That should break the heart of a nation,” he lamented.
The former Vice-President argued that young Nigerians should be building careers, starting businesses, raising families, and pursuing their dreams, not calculating how much parts of their bodies can fetch simply to stay alive.
Atiku asserted that when young Nigerians begin to see their kidneys as emergency savings, the situation is no longer about ordinary economic hardship.
“We are talking about desperation at its most frightening,” he said, emphasising that Nigeria already has laws prohibiting commercial organ sales and organ trafficking.
He, however, explained that laws alone cannot address the poverty and desperation that make vulnerable young people easy prey for criminal networks.
Atiku also maintained that no government should celebrate “reforms” while young Nigerians are being reduced to selling parts of themselves to eat, pay rent, settle school fees or survive.
He argued that economic reform must have a human face, saying it must mean affordable food, cheaper transportation, accessible healthcare, decent jobs, and renewed hope for the next generation.
“Our young people should be selling their ideas, talents, and innovation to the world and not their kidneys for ₦1.7 million just to survive at home,” he reiterated.
This, he said, is the human cost of Nigeria’s cost-of-living crisis, adding that the Tinubu administration had made Nigeria expensive.
He further pledged that he would make Nigeria affordable again.
