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By Zika Bobby
Miffed by the present economic hardship Nigerians are presently faced with, Senior Pastor of the Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare yesterday called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to kill corruption and not Nigerians.
Speaking on the theme: ‘Vice, virtue and time: The three things that shall never stand still’ at the church auditorium, in Lagos, Pastor Bakare lauded Nigerians for their resourcefulness, steadfastness and doggedness amid the present difficulties.
” I salute the Nigerian citizen who has,
for so long a time, borne the brunt of the capricious policies of political actors and the greed of a colluding elite. From a wrongly implemented naira redesign policy to an impulsive fuel subsidy removal announcement, and from a drowning of purchasing power in an attempt to float the naira, to an unbearable increase in the cost of basic amenities, the past and recent months have been particularly excruciating for the Nigerian citizen. I am talking about employees who have been forced to trek owing to the unaffordable spike in transportation costs; parents struggling to bridge the gap between their life savings and the cost of living; graduates whose chances of getting a job have become slimmer due to the impact of the economy on the labour market; I am talking about that trader whose meagre daily income has further diminished in value due to the dwindling value of the naira; that farmer who looks on in agony as his produce rots on the farm due to transportation challenges, inflation and insecurity; those children who will invariably be sent home in September due to outstanding fees. I acknowledge you, fellow citizens of our nation, because you are the true heroes. You, the so-called ordinary Nigerians, are the true reformers because, somehow, hoping against hope, you show up every single day in what would appear to be a federal republic of diminishing returns,” he said
He said the purpose of government is not to serve cronies or pander to corrupt business interests but to serve the citizens.
“If there are any wise ones among those surrounding the president, among the institutions of law and order, among the members of the National Assembly, among the power blocs that are sympathetic to the president, among the would-be cabinet members, or even among the stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), such wise ones would listen attentively and take this address as a wake-up call, laden with truths that could salvage a ship drifting in the gale of a socioeconomic and political Euroclydon,” he said.
He said according to the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), about 4 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country have shut down in the two months since the subsidy removal was announced. “This is even as jobs have been lost and households have been thrown into disarray due to a poorly managed policy. This same impulsive leadership style was evident when the president recently led the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to violate an ancient principle of diplomacy that is recognised even in the Holy Book: offer peace before declaring war. By placing military invasion on the table from the very start before subsequently exploring diplomatic options with the coup plotters in the Republic of Niger, President Tinubu put the cart before the horse, thus placing Nigeria and the subregion in a precarious situation. For any foreign invasion to succeed in the long term, the support of the locals is essential. From the spillover effect of subsidy removal to the effect of sanctions, local support for Nigeria and her leaders among Nigeriens is at an all-time low. It is, therefore, counter-intuitive to engage in what could be a protracted conflict. This much the Tinubu-led ECOWAS ought to have learnt from the aftermath of America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. While we condemn the spate of coup d’états in West Africa, we recognise that the situation calls for deep introspection on the part of African leaders and makes even more urgent the case for good governance. The call upon Nigeria at this time is not so much to compel submission in the subregion through the force of might, but to command alignment through exemplary governance. The real question is whether President Tinubu is capable of providing such moral leadership even in the domestic context.”
Bakare said what is further clear concerning Nigeria’s domestic challenges is that, by imposing hardship on Nigerians without going after corrupt individuals, corporations and government officials who have plundered Nigeria over the years in the name of subsidy, the president has picked the wrong fight. “In his Monday, July 31, 2023 address to the nation, the president stated that the vast sum of money which “would have been better spent on public transportation, healthcare, schools, housing and even national security…was being funnelled into the deep pockets and lavish bank accounts of a select group of individuals.” The president further stated that the subsidy removal policy was to stop the squandering of monies on “smugglers and fraudsters.” This compels us to ask the following salient questions: Who are these select groups of individuals into whose deep pockets our national treasury has been funnelled? Who are these smugglers and fraudsters that have been defrauding our nation in the name of subsidy? Who are these nameless characters that have fed fat at the expense of the poor? Or are they all sacred cows? Mr President, if you are truly on the side of the poor, if you are serious about the welfare of the people, if you truly want the poor to breathe, as you once said, then kill corruption, not Nigerians'” he said.
Bakare said the APC has become a party for politicians with no ideology, stressing that the results of the 2023 elections showed that Nigerians are tired of the ruling party.
He said the APC he joined to form has deviated from the principles it was founded on.
” I must sound a warning to the APC. I was there when the APC was formed and the extent of my involvement is well documented. As a stakeholder and more importantly as a nation builder, I am more obligated to state without equivocation that this is not the APC we envisaged. The results of the last elections were clear indications that Nigerians are fed up with what the APC had become.”
On the right against corruption, Bakare said the president, through the security agencies, with the facilitation of the National Security Adviser, must lead a
recovery-oriented war against corruption. “The primary aim of such an anti-corruption war should be to revisit the cumulative
allegations of fraudulent transactions worth trillions of naira, as highlighted by the various committees that have investigated the subsidy regime between 2007 and 2023. Such an anti-corruption war should also expose those who have paralysed our refineries over the years and turned our moribund refineries into cash
cows. All monies confirmed to have been fraudulently received by corporate and individual actors in the subsidy regime as well as the delusive Turn Around Maintenance of refineries should
be returned to the Nigerian treasury. Such monies should be deployed to further cushion the effects of subsidy removal on
the poor, revamp the local refineries, invest in alternative energy, finance infrastructure delivery in partnership with the private
sector and deliver good governance to the Nigerian people,” he said.
