BY AHMED AKANBI
A former Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, has faulted President Bola Tinubu’s 66th Independence Day address, describing it as empty, rhetorical and disappointing.
Dalung, a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, stated this on Thursday while speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief shortly after the President’s broadcast.
”Well, the president’s speech, let me begin by saying that it was rhetorical, wishful, ambitious, but very, very disappointing and empty,” he said.
He said the speech failed to give Nigerians concrete accountability of successes recorded by the Tinubu administration in the last three and a half years since assuming office in 2023.
According to him, the address should have addressed pressing issues on ground such as insecurity, agriculture, economy, unemployment, hunger, poverty and foreign exchange.
”These would have been the things that the president should have revealed in his speech, and he should have been able to tell as well, from 1960 to when he assumed office, this was the progress made, and then in three and a half years, despite the fact that the government inherited challenges, progress has been made,” Dalung said.
President Tinubu in his speech had likened Nigeria to a cancer patient when he took over in May 2023, saying poverty was rising and hope was nearly gone, and urged patience while the painful reforms yield results.
But Dalung accused the President of repeating the same stories since 2023, telling Nigerians to be patient without showing when the recovery will come.
”But all that the president has done was to tell Nigeria the same stories: ‘Oh, be patient and expect our reforms will yield.’ The question is, when shall the cancer victim recover? Because it does appear that the surgery has put him in a coma,” he said.
The former minister who served under ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, said economic growth figures must translate beyond paper to the wellbeing of citizens.
”So if we have recorded 4% economic growth, how has that been able to affect an average Nigerian? How does that 4% affect the cost of transportation and the purchasing power of Nigerians?” he queried.
He also accused Tinubu of abandoning Nigerians in captivity and failing to address insecurity, citing daily attacks and mass burials in Plateau State.
”The president completely abandoned Nigerians who are in captivity. Plateau State, for example, we are already running a full-blown war, because every day there is one attack or the other,” Dalung said.
He added that the President’s speech lacked connection with ordinary Nigerians and failed to inspire hope like independence speeches of the past when government provided free education and basic amenities.