- It Lacked Empathy, Humanity – Bode George
- Tinubu Rewarding Corruption By Not Probing Past Military Spending-Ex-Senator
- Worst Statement Made By Tinubu Was Scoring Himself ‘Excellent’-APC Chieftain
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has come under scathing attack over his comments in his first media chat held on December 23, 2024.
During the media chat, the president defended some of his policies including the removal of fuel subsidy, the floating of the naira, and the most recent controversial tax reform bills.
Those policies have been fingered to be responsible for the untold hardship experienced by Nigerians.
During the chat, the President insisted that he had no regret removing the fuel subsidy and his other policies saying the hallmark of a good leader is the ability to do what you have to do at the time it ought to be done.
READ ALSO: State Of The Nation: Tinubu Opens Up
Reacting to this, elder statesman Bode George flayed the president over the media chat saying the chat lacked empathy and humanity, stressing that the President, through his statements, is unfeeling to the plight of suffering Nigerians.
Drawing inferences from three food queue stampedes that claimed 67 lives in Nigeria last week, George said “there is hunger and anger in the land” yet the President continues to insist that his reforms are working while many Nigerians are becoming poorer by the day and businesses collapsing.
“We are not feeling it, it is getting worse by the day,” George said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday. “Hunger doesn’t believe in your talk, you gotta be real.”
The member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said Tinubu’s media chat was not a good way to end the year. “I’m surprised that there is no iota of somberness and humanity in the discussion. Why do you have a discussion in the first instance?” he quipped.
George, who insisted that the price of petrol be reduced, charged the Tinubu administration to offer immediate palliatives to hungry Nigerians whom he claimed have been impoverished by the policies of the current administration.
The government simultaneously unified forex windows, with the value of the naira nosediving terribly from $1/N700 to over $1/1600 at the parallel market. Prices of food and basic commodities immediately climbed through the roof as Nigerians battled attendant inflation.
READ ALSO: No Regret Removing Petrol Subsidy, Tinubu Insists
There has been pressure for Tinubu to reconsider his policies but during a media chat on Monday, Tinubu insisted that he has no regrets about removing petrol subsidy in May 2023, maintaining that Nigeria cannot continue to be Father Christmas to neighbouring countries.
Still reacting to the president’s media chat, a former federal lawmaker, Shehu Sani faulted President Tinubu for saying he is not interested in probing military spending under his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.
Sani, who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 8th National Assembly, said the President’s stance was contradictory to his probe of the past activities of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under embattled apex bank chief Godwin Emefiele.
Tinubu during a media chat on Monday said he won’t probe military expenditure under Buhari but Sani, who spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday, said doing that was tantamount to rewarding larceny and corruption.
The former lawmaker said, “When you find yourself in this position, especially with a nation facing these critical issues like ours, you still have to go backward and see how public funds that were looted have been recovered and I think we have been doing that with what has happened in the CBN the last time.
“But when one of the panelists questioned him (Tinubu) about the looting, the mismanagement of security and defense forces under the Buhari administration, which he needs to probe, I think he made it clear that he is more interested in moving forward than moving backward. It’s a bit contradictory; you can move backward in CBN but you can’t move backward in security.
“I believe that what should have been is that if he is being provided with evidence that shows that there are clear cases of corruption, he would move to recover public funds. That is what the answer was supposed to be.
“If you say that whatever happened in the past has gone, it is more like rewarding larceny which he has done by saying he is not going to go back.”
Sani said the President should be held accountable for all his policies and the actions of his ministers since he claimed all his cabinet members are performing.
“He (Tinubu) should be held responsible for what has happened under his government. He has economic reforms. He has started, there are lots of pains, Nigerians are suffering but it is a fact all over the world and in history: economic reforms have never been popular with the citizens,” he said.
Meanwhile, a chieftain of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) Jesutega Onokpasa has stated that the worst statement the president made during his first presidential media chat is scoring himself ‘excellent noting that President Tinubu has done the worst job by any president since independence.
Onokpasa, who is a vocal supporter of President Bola Tinubu, claimed the Federal Government has failed in food security which he said led many of the stampede victims to seek help during the charity events.
“The worst statement the president made during his first presidential media chat is scoring himself ‘excellent’… President Tinubu has done the worst job by any president since independence” the APC chieftain said on Tuesday’s edition of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
