From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon (retd) has called for patience while assessing the outcomes of President Bola Tinubu’s policies
He made the plea after meeting with President Tinubu at the State House, in their first meeting since Tinubu assumed office as President.
Drawing comparisons with his leadership throughout the Nigerian Civil War, Gowon underlined the critical need of achieving concrete outcomes while acknowledging that government criticism was inevitable.
Gowon who said as a surviving founding father of the regional bloc ECOWAS, he discussed President Tinubu’s plans as the chairman of ECOWAS and sought ways to address lingering matters affecting the region, was responding to a question on what advise he will give the president in the face of current economic challenges.
He said: “Well, I was telling him that no Nigerian leader that can get there and will not have all the report of what is being said about him. But certainly, there’s no doubt from what one hears and what one sees on the various media etc, I think the government is trying their best to deal with the various problems of the country but with Nigerians? Don’t you worry you will get criticised but people who get there know better than you know.
“I think all that one can say is that Nigerians, we’ve got to give the president time to get things really done. And it is too early to sort of say absolute result, perfect result will be achieved now. That is my opinion.
“I know and if I can remember, when I was fighting the war I was told I was too slow and that probably Nigeria cannot make it and that we should now seek for discussion. Well, did we do it or not? They probably do not know the problem underground so that is where we are.”