Publisher Dele Momodu has reacted to President Tinubu’s speech this morning August 4 amidst the End Bad Governance protest.
In a statement released on social media this morning, Momodu said like many Nigerians, he was ‘’stupefied’ by the broadcast.
He opined that the President failed to address the demands of helpless Nigerians. He pointed out that as a man who has held Lagos with an iron grip in the last 25 years, it would be difficult for the President to change his way of operating. He went on to list some of the things a ‘’sensitive leader’ would have done while giving such a broadcast. He wrote;
‘’”Fellow Nigerians, good morning. After the long awaited speech of PRESIDENT BOLA TINUBU eventually came this morning, I’m sure most of you would be as stupefied as me. I must confess that I had little hope of Tinubu granting some concessions to the aggrieved Nigerians. As a man who has held iron grip on Lagos State in the last 25 years, it would be difficult for him to change a winning formula that has worked for him ever since. Also, what did we expect his advisers to be telling him when most of them have been his most fanatical cronies from Lagos who have learnt never to challenge the Master.
So it was mere wishful thinking on the part of incurable optimists like me to think he was going to have mercy on hapless and seemingly helpless Nigerians. Just for academic purposes, let’s reel out what a sensitive leader, who craves the rightful position in posterity, would have done and said:
- In view of the unprecedented suffering being experienced by Nigerians, we have decided to cut the cost of governance drastically… Some Ministries will be scrapped and some Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and all redundant personnel would be eased out…No official cars would be procured anytime soon.
- The number of aircrafts on our Presidential fleet will be reduced to maximum two. I offer sincere apologies that we went ahead to invest in luxury items at this bad times. We shall place immediate embargo on subsequent purchases.
- Subsidy of petroleum products will be reviewed thoroughly to ascertain the genuine costs and true billing of the controversial payments. While we hope to achieve this in maximum of three months, we shall revert to old prices within this period in order to reduce the heavy burden on our people. We shall also escalate work on our existing refineries without which we shall be throwing away loads of resources. Nothing has stalled our refineries other than reckless corruption. This we are blocking immediately.
- Instead of tasking civil servants and politicians to handle students loans and vocational grants, we shall engage reputable accounting firms and banks to set up modalities for credits and activate the disbursements…” – CHIEF DELE MOMODU
