Senior Pastor of Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare, yesterday, described the policies of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government as anti people.
He said the policies have caused much economic hardship on citizens and that the February 25 election showed that Nigerians were tired of the ruling party.
Speaking on the theme “Vice, virtue and time: The three things that shall never stand still” at the church auditorium, in Lagos, Bakare said President Bola Tinubu’s actions, since assuming office, have been impulsive and have worsened the economy.
He lamented that the fuel subsidy removal by Tinubu had taken a heavy toll on Nigerians just as he challenged the president to tackle corruption and not compound the woes of Nigerians.
“Mr President kill corruption, and not Nigerians. No economy can thrive on impunity,” he said.
Bakare lauded Nigerians for their doggedness amid the ongoing difficulties.
He said: “ 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 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 obligated to state without equivocation that this is not the APC we envisaged. The results of the last elections were a clear indication that Nigerians are fed up with what the APC has become… when I consider the vision and founding spirit that birthed the APC, I cannot but conclude that the APC is losing the plot…
“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 a 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,” he said.
He said, data by Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), indicated that about four million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country have shut down in the two months since the subsidy removal was announced and that jobs have been lost and households have been thrown into disarray due to a poorly managed policy.
Bakare said what was 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.
