By El-ameen Ibrahim
The Hope Nigeria Movement (HNM) has called on Nigerian youths to resist any attempts to use them as tools against the ongoing reforms of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
This is even as the group also urged Nigerian youths to stand in solidarity with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as he works to free the country from the grip of vested interests.
The group disclosed this in a statement by it’s National Coordinator, Barr. Alfa Mohammed, on Saturday.
“Resist the temptations to be used against president Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s promising reforms. Stand in solidarity with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his quest librate Nigeria from the vested interests.
“Interrogate the past, identify those responsible for our woes, differentiate between enslavers and liberators,” it said.
While voicing serious concerns regarding the alleged diversion of ₦7 trillion annually by cabals through fuel subsidies in Nigeria from past administrations, it further decried how Naira subsidies costs about 9 trillion Naira annually.
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It alleged that “It is very sad to note that under the inherited system, cabals shared about 7 trillion Naira annually through fuel subsidies, Naira subsidies costs about 9 trillion Naira annually, power subsidies reached about 7 trillion Naira annually, and bureaucratic theft exceeded 7 trillion Naira annually.
The group urged that instead of inciting citizens against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government, “former presidents should persuade their cronies who they had auctioned and handed the nation’s economic levers to release Nigeria’s economy from their strangulating grasp.
It added that Nigeria was once an economically vibrant nation where basic necessities were accessible and affordable to all, but under the former leaders, reverse became the case.
Continuing, it said that successive past leaders inherited a thriving economy but “Killed the local government autonomy which has turned the grassroots the poverty capital in every state, ended free education which they inherited from the post independence leaders
“Eliminated mortgage financing schemes, consolidated and recapitalize the Banks with public funds before selling them to their proxies, and turned banks into rent-seekers, harming small-scale industries and the foreign exchange market.
It note that within the first year, of President Tinubu’s administration it has changed the bed status quo.
“The local government autonomy is back, near free education by way of students loan is back, mortgage and Credit financing scheme is back with the revival of the mortgage banks and the establishment of the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation and cheap transportation fuel has arrived through the CNG initiative,” it stated.
