• President to send new minimum wage bill to N’Assembly
• Democracy yet to deliver prosperity, liberty, says former VP
• PDP, NADECO USA accuse APC govt of desecrating Abiola’s legacy
• LP scores FG low as ASUU seeks boost to economy
• Democracy remains work in progress, Jonathan reminds Nigerians
A former vice president and presidential aspirant in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, and other Nigerians, yesterday, toed a different path from President Bola Tinubu’s “understanding” of the country’s economy and the pains felt by the citizenry.
In his Democracy Day message celebrating 25 years of unbroken democratic governance in Nigeria, Tinubu said: “I understand the economic difficulties we face as a nation.”
He noted that the economy had been in desperate need of reform for decades and had been unbalanced because it was built on the flawed foundation of over-reliance on revenues from the exploitation of oil.
Promising to always listen to the people and never turn his back on them, the President said: “The reforms we have initiated are intended to create a stronger, better foundation for future growth. There is no doubt the reforms have occasioned hardship. Yet, they are necessary repairs required to fix the economy over the long run, so that everyone has access to economic opportunity, fair pay and compensation for his endeavour and labour.”
The President also vowed: “In this spirit, we have negotiated in good faith and with open arms with organised labour on a new national minimum wage. We shall soon send an executive bill to the National Assembly to enshrine what has been agreed upon as part of our law for the next five years or less.”
Atiku, however, disagreed that President Tinubu was steering the country towards better times.
In his Democracy Day message, he said: “The past nine years have thrown up a regime of extreme hardship manifested in excruciating poverty and unprecedented levels of violence and insecurity upon our people. Sadly, the ruling All Progressives Congress is to blame for bringing forth this dawn of gloom.”
Noting that “our democracy is not yet virile if it continually fails to deliver the promises of prosperity and liberty to the people,” Atiku called on all stakeholders to continue to do their bit to ensure the sustainability of the nation’s democracy.
“There’s no substitute to democracy as a form of government,” he added.
Atiku’s lamentation was echoed by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which accused the ruling All Progressives Congress of desecrating all that the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief M.K.O. Abiola laboured and died for.
In a message, which was conveyed by National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the party charged citizens to use the occasion of this year’s Democracy Day to speak against “the anti-democratic tendencies of the insensitive APC which is asphyxiating, inflicting hardship, trampling on the will and rights of Nigerians, and seeking to foist a totalitarian system on our nation.”
PDP maintained that democracy is all about the supremacy of the will of the people, the rule of law and the pursuit of the security and well-being of citizens. It, however, noted: “These ideals have been completely violated by APC administrations which leaders have no respect for public opinion but delight in burdening the people through multiple taxes and looting of the treasury to finance their luxury appetite while subjecting other Nigerians to a life of fear, uncertainty, despondency and abject poverty.”
The opposition party said it was “more disquieting” that “all the progress and gains made by successive PDP administrations in entrenching democratic practice in Nigeria have been reversed by APC administrations.”
THE National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), USA, described the Tinubu presidency as a betrayal of the spirit of June 12.
It also faulted the 2023 presidential election, saying it was the worst electoral fraud in Nigeria’s history.
According to the group, the June 12, 1993, presidential election was a milestone in the democratic evolution of Nigeria and remained the most transparent and credible in the country’s political history.
President/CEO of NADECO USA, Dr Lloyd Ukwu, said the winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, was a national figure who meant well for the country.
He said the Tinubu administration “lacks coordination and cohesion. In addition, it is plagued by inefficiency, anti-people policies, corruption, cronyism, godfatherism, and political patronage.
“Undoubtedly, just like Tinubu represents the worst of the Nigerian politicians, and his rise to power was marked by the worst electoral fraud in Nigerian history, his government will be the worst we have ever known in Nigeria. But June 12 and NADECO will remain as father and son,” he said.
Ukwu explained in a statement: “Ironically, the American chapter of NADECO disowned him. This is because his electoral victory in the February 25, 2023, presidential election was an unconscionable assault on the institutional moorings of democracy and a crass disenfranchisement of the Nigerian masses.
“Deliberately, egregiously, he subverted the essence of democracy and bulldozed his way into power through the four anti-democratic horsemen: bribery, voter intimidation, insecurity, and vote rigging. It was tantamount to a bludgeon on Nigerian democracy, and the extolment of all that can be wrong with Nigerian politics.”
He added: “It has been written that ‘nobody, who steals political power, uses it for the good of the people.’ Not surprisingly, Tinubu’s presidency has been toxic for Nigeria.
“Its toxicity is made palpable by the pervading hunger and deepening and widening poverty among the Nigerian masses; spiralling inflation; steady depreciation of the naira; an economy tottering at the brinks of a collapse; an oil-rich country with the social indexes of the poorest and/or war-torn countries of the world.”
This was as the Oyo State chapter of Labour Party (LP) said democracy over the last 25 years had been in retrogression, leaving Nigerians praising the past years as better.
Chairman, Sadiq Tunji Atayese, said the administration of President Tinubu had followed the same pattern in the last one year.
He lamented the increase in cost of living, prices of basic commodities, and transportation expenses, saying these have collectively burdened citizens.
Atayese also faulted the floating exchange rate, removal of petroleum subsidies without adequate palliatives, and rampant corruption.
Expressing concern over the government’s lack of prudence in resource management, he called for decisive action to address growing poverty and unemployment.
He criticised the ostentatious lifestyles of government officials amid widespread poverty, urging President Tinubu to demonstrate the same courage that led to the removal of petroleum subsidies and recover stolen funds from the past administration.
LP demanded a reduction in the cost of governance and called for the implementation of policies that would alleviate poverty.
A statement by Atayese reads: “Transportation cost has increased in leaps. Average income has shrunk. Businesses have closed down, and probably not to open again. Youths have been released into the unemployment market due to the shutdown of businesses. People have become poorer. People are disoriented. People are not happy and have mostly lost all hope.
“We, at the Labour Party, would like to appreciate our peoples’ resilience over the years. You have been adopting various coping mechanisms for the challenges of the time. However, as things are going, there’s an urgent need for decisive positive actions.
“We call on the government at various levels to stop insulting the adaptability of our people through their ostentatious living amid poverty of the people. It is a show of selfishness and irresponsibility, to say the least.”
Similarly, the Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan chapter, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, yesterday, urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to promote democratic culture and activities that will boost the Nigerian economy.
Akinwole, in a statement marking the June 12 Democracy Day, said: “Disappointingly and unfortunately, 25 years after the return of democracy to Nigeria, the citizenry is yet to enjoy the benefits and dividends of democracy; some or most of the malaise and challenges characteristic of military rule are still very much palpable and obvious in the Nigerian body-politic.”
Titled ‘25 Years of Democratic Era in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic: The Experience of the University System’, Akinwole’s statement noted: “Six years after (June 6, 2018) the Muhammadu Buhari administration announced June 12 as Democracy Day in Nigeria, we have every reason to think celebrating the Day cannot be enough without democratic leadership style.”
It reads in part: “It is a duty to our children, born and unborn, to be educated in decent classrooms and not under trees or sheds. Our children are entitled, as of right, to laboratory and classroom facilities. In the event of a lack of these, they will be enslaved all over again in the coming century by people who are not better endowed by nature and by God.
“Rather than support ASUU’s advocacy for adequate funding of public universities, each senator is surreptitiously pushing for the establishment of a university as part of his or her constituency projects while Visitors to state universities, who could not fund existing universities, are creating two or more, purely for electoral gains.”
It added: “This trend has put much stress on the intervention funds of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), which are diverted to establish new universities, contrary to the Fund’s Act. I urge the President Tinubu-led administration to refrain from further proliferation of universities and refocus the system.”
In his submission, a founding member of the All Progressives Congress, Mr Osita Okechukwu, called on President Tinubu to urgently address the biting poverty, hunger and deprivation faced by an overwhelming majority of Nigerians.
Okechukwu, in a statement, advised Tinubu on how best to reclaim the June 12 spirit, saying: “We must first appreciate the truth that many Nigerians are left behind without dividends of democracy, wallowing in abject poverty, hunger and deprivation. The grim reality is that what we have is untapped, and there are few resources to share with our burgeoning population.”
He urged the President to recapitalise the electricity chain to boost industrial production, mechanise agriculture, and modernise the mortgage housing scheme.
He said Nigerians are fortunate that the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda captured these items.
He added: “If I were Mr President, now that the international community has bought into his neoliberal economic programmes, I will harvest the golden opportunity and borrow from them to renew the hope of Nigerians and reclaim, restore and reconnect the broken spirit of June 12.
“The United States of America, for instance, is heavily indebted but hugely guided by high industrial capacity.”
Also, Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) observed that although Tinubu was among the foot soldiers who fought for the actualisation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, his policies are not in tandem with the blueprints of the acclaimed winner of the polls, Chief M.K.O. Abiola.
National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, in an interview with The Guardian, said: “Tinubu’s administration cannot deliver on the ideals of June 12, because his policies are focused towards enriching his few friends, and his administration has no programme for eradicating poverty.”
MEANWHILE, during the 2024 Democracy Day Lecture, held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday, the chairman of the occasion, former President Goodluck Jonathan, noted that the return to civil rule in 1999 marked a new phase for national unity, peace and progress.
He cited gains over the past 25 years, including economic growth, infrastructure development, and peaceful political transitions.
Jonathan however maintained that democracy remains a work in progress, adding: “Our democracy, though young, has weathered storms and proven its endurance. We must continue deepening our democratic roots to ensure all Nigerians benefit.”
