- Says Tinubu plunged Nigeria into chaos by placing cart before the horse
- Condemns indefinite detention of Emefiele
- Warns ‘Emilokan politics’ will breed imperium presidency
BY BRIGHT JACOB
Renowned cleric and politician, Pastor Tunde Bakare, vibrated the polity again on Sunday when he criticized the current administration and described the announcement of fuel subsidy removal as “impulsive”.
He said the poor people were being made to suffer for the corruption of a few powerful people benefiting from the subsidy regime, noting that the President should have gone after those individuals, and not “punish” Nigerians.
In his state of the nation address titled, “Vice, Virtue and Time: The Three Things That Never Stand Still”, Bakare noted that the removal of subsidy was tantamount to killing Nigerians.
In his address, the preacher said the Nigerian government should rather kill corruption and not Nigerians, whom he noted, were now bearing the “brunt of the capricious policies of political actors and the greed of colluding elite.”
He said, “From a wrongly implemented naira redesign policy to an impulsive fuel subsidy removal announcement, and from a drowning of purchasing power in an attempt to float the naira, to an unbearable increase in the cost of basic amenities, the past and recent months have been particularly excruciating for the Nigerian citizen.
“I am talking about employees who have been forced to trek owing to the unaffordable spike in transportation costs; parents struggling to bridge the gap between their life savings and the cost of living; graduates whose chances of getting a job have become slimmer due to the impact of the economy on the labour market; I am talking about that trader whose meagre daily income has further diminished in value due to the dwindling value of the naira; that farmer who looks on in agony as his produce rots on the farm due to transportation challenges, inflation and insecurity; those children who will invariably be sent home in September due to outstanding fees.”
Bakare noted that the announcement by Tinubu in his May 29 inaugural address that “subsidy is gone” despite not being in his inauguration speech, had “unwittingly plunged” Nigeria into chaos by a very poor change management process.
“Whatever the president’s true motivations were, it is clear that he put the cart before the horse. What is also clear is that the president was economical with the truth by giving Nigerians the impression that he was taking a courageous move to remove the fuel subsidy when the previous government had already taken that step.
“As Nigerians would later learn, subsidy payment had already been ended by the Buhari administration, and no subsidy was paid in 2023 even though there was provision for it on paper up to June 2023.”
According to Bakare, the President “in line with change management principles” should have handled more circumspectly the announcement of such an issue that borders on the livelihood of the Nigerian citizen.
He observed that that would have spared Nigerians “the reactionary scarcity and price hikes that immediately followed his announcement.”
“Furthermore, what is even clearer is that the president had been handed a month of grace by the previous administration; a month that should have been used to put in place cushioning effects before the official expiration of the subsidised economy.
“What is further clear concerning our domestic challenges is that, by imposing hardship on Nigerians without going after those corrupt individuals, corporations and government officials who have plundered Nigeria over the years in the name of subsidy, the president has picked the wrong fight,” he added.
He recalled that the 2012 protest against subsidy removal, saying the fight then was against the corruption in the system.
“This was our fight when, amid the threats to my life and family, right there at Ojota and live on national and international television, I called out by name those individual and corporate entities who had allegedly ravaged our nation.
“Mr President, given the complexity of the Nigerian economy, we are not thoroughly convinced that your palliatives will be sufficient to cushion the effect of your policies on the Nigerian citizen,” he said.
He added that the demand 11 years ago was for the current occupant of the Office of the President, to “Kill Corruption, Not Nigerians.”
“Some might say that you, Mr President, are too tainted to fight corruption because you were escorted into the presidency by a retinue of corruption allegations. Some might even describe you as transparently opaquely corrupt because, despite the indicators of state capture allegedly linked to you, no one has proved these allegations against you in any Nigerian court of competent jurisdiction.
“Some might argue that even the road you took to the presidency was itself paved with filth from the cesspool of corruption and that you are, therefore, incapable of mounting any genuine fight against corruption. Mr President, while we admit that, as of today, our nation has transitioned from an administration that came to power on the 12/30 supposed wings of integrity and anti-corruption to one that cannot be described as such, the fact remains that you are today the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with enormous powers to fight against corruption in its hydra-headed forms.”
Bakare said, “I’m reminded of the warning that I sounded to Nigerians in January 2023 in my address titled, ‘Bridging the gap between politics and governance.’
“I warned that the politics of entitlement; the ’emilokan’ type of politics would breed an imperium presidency, one that would slide towards dictatorship and would be intolerant of dissent.”
Bakare’s comments were regarding the arrest, detention and prosecution of the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele, as well as the detention of the former boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa, by the Department of State Services.
The DSS arrested Emefiele in June, which according to the spokesperson of the security agency, Peter Afunanya, “was on the strength of suspected fresh criminal infractions/information, one of which forms the basis for his current prosecution.”
The Federal High Court in Lagos, last Thursday, fixed August 15 to hear an application by Emefiele seeking to halt his trial by the Federal Government through the DSS.
Reacting, Bakare said, “The actions of the DSS have raised concerns about professionalism and adherence to the rule of law. The reported invasion of the premises of the EFCC and the handling of the case of Emefiele has sparked discussions regarding the need for due process and equitable application of justice.
“The handling of the Emefiele case has sent a signal to the world and the current President’s disposition to the war against corruption.”
The cleric said the war against corruption by the present administration was like making some people scapegoats by virtue of them being “political adversaries while various other major enemies of Nigeria remain untouched.”
He said Emefiele, if found culpable, should be prosecuted, adding that the suspended CBN governor might have made a wrong call in the management of the monetary affairs of the country, but he should not be made a scapegoat because he could not have acted without presidential authorisation.
