A former National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has stated that President Bola Tinubu is becoming increasingly insensitive to the plight of citizens.
According to him, in less than 10 months since Tinubu’s assumption of office, prices of practically everything have skyrocketed. For instance, a 50kg bag of rice, which used to cost about N28,000 in May 2023, is now around N70,000 as of February 2024.
Lukman, in a statement released in Abuja, noted that a 50kg bag of maize, which used to be N16,000, is now more than N60,000; a 10-litre container of groundnut oil, previously N10,200, now goes for more than N21,000, while a 10-litre container of palm oil, which was N7,000, is now more than N12,000.
The APC chieftain stated that all these price hikes are due to President Tinubu’s government’s decision to remove subsidy on petroleum products and float the naira exchange rate.
“As a result, a litre of Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) has increased to N670 from N189. A litre of Kerosene increased to N1,300 from N1,000. A 12kg Cooking Gas cylinder increased to N12,500 from N3,800. The exchange rate of the Naira is now hovering around N1,500 to the US Dollar from about N700. Given all these, citizens’ incomes have plummeted to less than 25% of its value before May 2023.
“The value continues to decline. The question of providing new opportunities for income earning is, at best, an academic debate. High-level government officials continue to address the issues from the comfort of their zones of comfort.
“The truth must be told: There is a significant existential problem facing citizens. Unfortunately, all we hear are appeals for patience. How long are citizens expected to survive under this kind of very harsh, suffocating reality? What is the government’s plan?
“As someone who was at the forefront of the struggle for democracy, this certainly wasn’t what we fought for. Also, as a supporter of President Asiwaju Tinubu, we least expected that President Asiwaju Tinubu would be weakly responsive to the challenges facing Nigerians,” he said.
Lukman stated clearly that at this rate, APC under President Tinubu may have succeeded in turning Nigeria’s democracy into an insensitive party. He added that APC should ideally be the model as the ruling party, based on which it is able to orient the initiatives of governments it controls to respond to the challenges facing citizens.
Unfortunately, as it stands, either the APC is alienated from citizens, or it is unable to orient the initiatives of governments it controls to respond to the needs of citizens.
“President Tinubu, APC leaders, and Nigerian politicians can do better. How can anyone with the faintest conscience live a normal life with a reality whereby the same citizens who elected them as leaders are impoverished by decisions we took as a ruling party?
“Is President Asiwaju Tinubu even aware that the majority of our citizens, including relatively high-income earners, cannot afford medication when they are sick?” the former Progressive Governors Forum Director-General pondered.
The former APC national officer admitted that both as an activist, a politician, and a Nigerian, he is heartbroken and devastated by the fact that the performance of President Tinubu in the last 10 months betrays all the expectations they had.
He said if within a four-year tenure and after 10 months, the scorecard is gory tales of existential crises for citizens, then the political value of such a regime is suspect, and urged Tinubu to wake up and urgently do the needful to demonstrate his true democratic and progressive credentials.
“APC leaders must also wake up from their current power drunkenness and push the administration of President Asiwaju Tinubu to become more responsive and stop behaving like a military administration.
“A civilian elected government, which tramples on the structures of its party and blocks its organs from functioning, is as good as a military government. The choice between democracy and a dictatorship is clear. Once the party’s structures are blocked from functioning, the capacity of any so-called democracy to respond to challenges facing citizens will be weak,” he added.
Lukman prayed to God to touch the hearts of President Tinubu and all APC leaders, and indeed all Nigerian politicians, to understand that millions of Nigerians are confronted with life-threatening reality today.