Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, described President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s nationwide broadcast as deceptive, uninspiring and a complete waste of time.
According to Shaibu, the speech was designed to convince the National Labour Congress (NLC) to stop it’s planned strike.
He insisted that Tinubu ought to apologise to Nigerians for removing fuel subsidy without a clear plan that would ameliorate the sufferings of the people, adding that the president’s mode of governance has shown how clueless he is.
The Peoples Democratic Party chieftain also slammed Tinubu for putting the blame of the economic crisis on subsidy thieves and insisted that if his accusations were true then the perpetrators ought to have being brought to book.
In a statement issued on Monday, Shaibu said, “The speech is deceptive and a complete waste of time. Tinubu’s speech was hurriedly put together in order to dissuade the suffering masses and the organised labour from embarking on protests. Rather than apologise for removing subsidy without providing a cushion for the poor, he went about accusing subsidy thieves of being behind the current suffering. If he is sure of this, why hasn’t he arrested them?
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“Tinubu also lied when he claimed that he had for years been an advocate of subsidy removal. This was a man who in 2012 described petrol subsidy removal as ‘the Goodluck Jonathan tax,’ and sponsored protests in Lagos State. After he dubiously got to power, he lacked imagination on how to address the issue and then removed the subsidy but without a plan.”
He further berated Tinubu for promising that the minimum wage would soon be reviewed upwards because it is obvious that he failed to properly plan for the removal of petrol subsidy.
“Shouldn’t the discussion on the increase of minimum wage have been done prior to subsidy removal? This is the height of cluelessness, putting the cart before the horse,” he said.
Shaibu insisted that Tinubu’s plan to provide N50,000 grants to small businesses would be undermined by inflation, exchange rate problems and corruption.
“Tinubu says he will provide N50,000 (about $60) to 1,300 nano businesses. This is reminiscent of the dubious tradermoni and the monthly N20,000 spent on the public works programme of the last APC government which not only failed to stimulate the economy, but also worsened poverty as funds went into private pockets.
“What mechanism is in place to ensure that poor Nigerians access this? The answer is none. This is nothing but deception as we shall all see in the coming weeks,” he added.
