Government and good governernace relates to the political institutional processes and outcomes that neccessry to goals of development. The true test of good governernace is the degree to which it delivers on the promise of human rights: civic cultural, economic, political and social rights.
Removing subsidy which ordinary Nigerians are benefiting from and gave the accrued money to some executive thieves to share is one of the decision and policy blunders of President Tinubu. Imagine stopping subsidy because of some oil mafia and thieves and ended up handing down money saved from subsidy removal to another committee of thieves. Nothing has changed when you removed cash from front-pocket to back-pocket of same body and cloth, it’s mere change of location with equal access for penetration.
We all witnessed the almajiri palliative executed in Kogi State last year, where some selected party members got 3 cups of rice and N1k as palliative to cushion the effect of high cost of every commodities, what is the faith of other kogites who were denied the 3 cups of rice and 1k for the obvious political reasons? And assuming everyone got the rice and 1k, what happens to them after exhausting the 3 cups of rice and 1k? Are they still eating the rice now in February 2024? Nigerian citizens are now being treated like Internally Displaced Person, IDPs, so in practical sense, it is! The current suffering is unjust and undeserved.
If it is the best decision to tackle the fraud in subsidy regime by making ordinary Nigerians pay dearly for the class looting, then what is the punishment for the subsidy mafias? Sharing grains, millets, agabado and rice without a proper register, data and monitoring via a Governor who collected N50 billion and yet refuses to pay civil servants and pensioners? Or Governors who failed woefully in their primary responsibilities in their various states except very few? To make it worse in Kogi for instance, they drafted in retinue of idle, indolent redundant and handpicked local govt chairmen as well as political jobbers to be part of the palliative distribution? We saw how federal government rice ended up in the various party secretariat, personal abodes of party leaders and so called stakeholders to the detriment of the masses.
As long as the President continues this way, Nigerian citizens will continue to suffer and his name will continue to be called as the architect of their hardship. If a president knows how to hurriedly remove subsidy, he should know how to hurriedly make provision to cushion the effects. A working solution for that matter!
As it stands, nothing has happened, no reasonable idea has been canvassed as to how Nigerians will get out of this avoidable hardship.
When you hear the govt Ministers speaks, they only speak with no idea or solution to the problems on ground. Some of them are even far from the reality or let me say they are deliberately out of reality, and at the end they will go and tell the President, he is on the right track and on one side, plead for patience and calmness while they continue their extravagant life.
Let the President act fast to profer working solution and conduct an assessment of his policy under his nine months governernace, to know where and what needs to be adjusted as well as holding governors accountable for the money received so far in the name of palliatives.
It is not enough to disburse money to governors in the face of hunger and starvation, did the President ever asked or inquire to know how much “trust and confidence” the people have in there governors and representatives before throwing out money?
– Gbenga Bright in an indigene of Kogi state.
