A former spokesman for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council in 2023, Kenneth Okonkwo, has described as bland and uninspiring President Bola Tinubu’s Sunday broadcast to Nigerians on the #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests.
“The people are protesting for hunger and hardship, deprivation and degradation. And the president was compelled to speak,” the lawyer said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday.
“I wish they did not compel him. If I were a media aide, I would have preferred there was no speech at all because a bad speech is worse than no speech at all.
“In addition to the speech being empty and very annoying, it was even leaked before the day,” Okonkwo said, adding that the president should have fired some of his media aides.
“The president was compelled to speak; I wish they did not compel him…because a bad speech is worse than no speech at all.”
The actor-turned-lawyer said Tinubu did not address any of the demands of the protesters. He insisted that protest is necessary in a democracy but condemned violent actions by a few persons.
He said the President should have reduced the size of his cabinet and reversed the decision to buy him a new presidential jet.
Okonkwo said instead of petrol subsidy removal and its replacement with palliatives, which according to him, don’t go around, the government should return the subsidies on petrol and electricity tariff because “subsidy itself is a palliative.”
According to him, this government has depreciated the standard of living of Nigerians and the administration should restore productivity through the provision of a friendly business climate.
Aside from Okonkwo, Noble Laureate Wole Soyinka, senior lawyer Femi Falana, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), among others picked holes in the president’s speech.
Protesters’ Demands
On Sunday, Tinubu ruled out the return of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) famously known as petrol.
During a broadcast to over 200 million Nigerians after days of unbroken nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests economic hardship, the President said the removal of subsidy on petrol was a painful but necessary decision he took for economic reforms.
The return of petrol subsidy has been one of the very clear demands of young Nigerians who took to the streets since Thursday to protest the economic woes confronting the country.
Tinubu, ex-Lagos governor, announced the removal of petrol subsidy during his inaugural speech as President on May 29, 2023. The price per litre of the product jumped from around N184 to over N700 depending on where it is sold in the country.
The government simultaneously unified forex windows, with the value of the naira nosediving terribly from $1/N700 to over $1/1600 at the parallel market. Prices of food and basic commodities immediately climbed through the roof as Nigerians battled attendant inflation.
Some of the protesters’ demands include the restoration of petrol subsidies and the forex regime. They also want the government to address food shortages, unemployment, and the wasteful spending of those in power. Other demands are a reduction of the President’s cabinet and general cost of governance, immediate reforms of the electoral umpire INEC and anti-graft agency EFCC with renewed vigour in the fight against corrupt politicians.
