Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has expressed serious concern about the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over what it termed its “total negligence of everything that can make the people comfortable and happy,” urging it pay attention to people’s welfare in the new year 2024.
CUPP raised this concern in its new year message to the nation, signed by its spokesperson, Comrade Mark Adebayo, copy of which was made available to newsmen in Lagos, even as it frowned at what it observed as the seemingly reckless abandonment of everything in terms of policies that can positively impact on the lives of “regular Nigerians since the inception of the Tinubu presidency.”
The coalition said giving the current situation in the country, it was difficult to even say happy new year to fellow Nigerians due to mass hunger, anger, insecurity and the abject lack of empathy or deliberate policy thrusts from the leadership of this country to make the lives of the citizens better.
CUPP, while sadly noting the seeming lack of transformational policies on the part of Tinubu- led presidency, said the country was thrown into unprecedented economic crisis right from day one on May 29th, 2023, “in fact within minutes of Mr. President’s inauguration as president.”
According to the coalition, this sad development happened even before President Tinubu’s departure from the Eagle Square where he was inaugurated, “due to the reckless and inhumane manner by which the fuel subsidy was thoughtlessly removed without first putting in place palliative measures that could assuage the excruciating impact of the subsidy removal.”
CUPP said inflation rate had since then skyrocketed from about 20per cent in May 2023 when this administration took over to over 30per cent and still rising as a direct impact of what it described as the unplanned and insensitive fuel subsidy removal, pointing out in particular that food and other essential household items, healthcare, transportation and education suddenly became luxury items beyond the reach of most Nigerians.
“The suffering in the country has so much escalated that the over 130 million multidimensionally poor Nigerians can no longer breath because of its suffocating impact on majority of Nigerians,” it said.
“The president himself witnessed this first-hand in his home state of Lagos when he travelled there on vacation in December when he was greeted by mass of Lagosians with the shouts of
‘Ebi n pa wa o, Åsiwaju,’ meaning: ‘We are hungry, Mr. President.’ What a way to welcome a president home by his own people, in his strongest political domain? That is reflective of the general feelings about this government all over the country today,” the coalition stated.
CUPP maintained that President Tinubu had, for the past seven months, not demonstrated either capacity or the will to do anything differently to move this country forward from the retrogressive leadership identity of the past, saying if anything, he was merely consolidating on the perennial leadership failures since flag independence in 1960.
According to it, insecurity in the country is getting worse as witnessed by the hundreds of Nigerians massacred in Plateau State on the eve of the last Christmas celebration, with additional hundreds kidnapped, killed and maimed in Zamfara, Kaduna, Yobe and other states.
Besides, CUPP observed that kidnappers had even returned to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in a more daring manner, adding that kidnappings, armed robberies incidents across the country and the menace of unknown gunmen in the South-East had gone out control, with no sign indicating “at all that we have a president who was prepared to govern this country in a way that it deserves.”
“The only thing we are seeing is the presidency voting several billions to buy new cars for themselves and their cronies and family members, renovate their official residences and more billions of Naira for feeding themselves and their families while they don’t care about several millions of Nigerians who go to bed hungry daily.
“Nigerians are hungry and angry. The president’s so-called Renewed Hope Agenda has turned to a Dashed Hope Vendetta on the people of Nigeria. For the first time since the inception of this democratic dispensation, Federal workers were not paid December salaries to enjoy Christmas and new year celebrations. There is no way to describe this than executive wickedness,” CUPP said.
CUPP spokesperson, Comrade Adebayo, therefore, urged the government to ensure that something was urgently done to solve the challenges of mass hunger, mass unemployment, burgeoning insecurity and bloodshed all over the country, and further called on President Tinubu “to govern with the fear of God and the interests of Nigerians in the new year because the space for excuses and false hope advertisement has run out.”
Adebayo, while making the call, noted that the general consensus of opinion across the country today is that, so far, this government had only dispensed sorrow, suffering and disappointment to Nigerians, adding: “Even the president’s most vociferous supporters and party members attest to this.”
“The president must demonstrate capacity to govern in this 2024 and cut down significantly on reckless spendings on luxury items when most of Nigerians are suffering and hungry.
“The opposition will continue to pay close attention to how the country is being run and continue to engage in constructive criticisms in defence of the people and justice,” he said.
