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By Kayode Abdul
A renowned Ilorin based-Islamic scholar, Prof. Lanre Badmus has advised President Bola Tinubu to be more passionate in tackling hunger, and poverty that is biting harder on the the lives of common people in the country.
Badmus, who lectures at the University of Ilorin gave the advice while speaking with Accurate News Nigeria on the state of the nation in Ilorin, Kwara state capital.
The clergyman said the major problem in Nigeria at the moment is unprecedented hunger which happens as a result of uncontrollable inflationary trends and poverty.
“The major problem in Nigeria at the moment is unprecedented hunger. Although Mr President in the last twelve months appears to be trying his best, his best has not been good enough for as long as he is not able to reverse the poverty that is staring people in their faces.
“If you would recall before he was sworn in one calendar year ago, we knew the prices of foodstuff in the Market. It is the responsibility of the presidency to improve the economic situation, to improve the security situation, and to improve the lives of Nigerians generally but it appears that we are having what is called a diminishing return, compared to what was happening in the last administration to what is happening now. You see a lot of people clamouring for the return of last administration.
“We have to commend Mr President that he is doing his best but his best is not good enough for the common people in Nigeria. If hunger has driven the common man to the corner at the end of the day they would become angry and eventually consume the rich people.
“It is a thing of shame that Mr. President has not been able to address the problem of poverty as far as workers are concerned, if I recall very well, the salary of the Judiciary was increased by more than 300%. Now that the workers are clamouring for an increase, the Federal government offers N60,000 they turn it down, they go on strike, they are invited back to the negotiation table and they obliged as patriotic Nigerians as Union leaders are.
“Honestly it is very ridiculous, very shameful that what the government can propose is N62,000, that amount can not buy a bag of Rice, you think of an average Nigerian family, a husband, wife, and two children, what can they do with N62,000 naira for a month, they have a responsibility to give education to their children, even transport money for children going to nearby schools.
“The president needs to think of a mechanism to address the uncontrollable inflationary trend in the Nigeria market.
“The present situation in the country makes it look like what people are saying about Mr President that he is a capitalist, he seems to be behaving like one.
“So if people are hungry, if people are not healthy, then definitely they would be dying one after the other if you look at the mortality rate in Nigeria now, it is alarming, if all of us die, who are the people that Mr President is going to govern.
“My appeal to Mr Presisent is to look inward and look at the cost of governance and reduce it drastically.
“We would not but cite the example of era of Islamic governance in history, there was a time when rice was very very scarce and above the roof the of poor people, the leaders at that time banned cooking rice in their homes.
“So if Mr. President is going to convince us that he has our love in mind, they should review the cost of governance, let them come out clearly and declare that the executive, legislature and judiciary, we cut down our emolument by 50% there and then people would know that yes, Mr. President has the love of common people in mind but the way things are going now, the Nigeria treasury is not safe in the hand of Mr. President because of the people that surrounded him.
“People that have graduated beyond learning in corruption in which they were swimming, they have been able to get A-level in corruption, these are the people that Mr. President surrounded himself with, unfortunately, they make it difficult and impossible for Mr Presidnet to listen to the cry of poor people.
Speaking on insecurity, the University don advised Mr President to declare state of Emergency on Insecurity, banditry, saying the president needed to give armed forces marching order, deadline, maximum of three months and any failure to give result should resulted to sack of head of security agencies for incapability.
“The people involved in those criminal activities are not angels or spirit, what is the level of our proficiency in intelligence gathering, what about the shopiscitated war plane we have, the drowne, and everything that our Military can use to ransack all the bushy areas in Niger, Zamfara, Kastina, Plateau states, and other areas that banditry and Bokoharam trying to take over from the legitimate government?
“Mr President has not done enough, he should be able to do better.
“However, Mr President has impressed me in one area and that is the fight against corrupt members of his cabinet.
“You can see that one of them has been kicked out and all efforts, and political calculations some people have adopted to bring her back, Mr. President declined but to impress us more, there are more corrupt people in his cabinet, it would be incredible for Mr. President to pretend that he is not aware of that even in the presidency, corrupt people are there and if care is not taken they would be influencing few good ones among them negatively.
“For Mr. President to claim Mr clean, he should be able to clean his cabinet, luckily after one year he should be able to go back to the boardroom to assess and reassess the performances of his appointees and do away with those who are not doing well and when they are being replaced they should minimize the political consideration, they should look for people with the pedigree of being honest, trustworthy regardless of which political party they belong to.
“You can make it 50/50 for the trustworthy who have been tested, bring them in, and bring those who campaigned with you in as far as your party is concerned with this in the next one year, we should be able to say Haleluyah and clap for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu”.
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