The national leader of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, has
challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to do more to improve the lot of citizens.
The former governor gave the advice
yesterday while unveiling a book, Making Steady, Sustainable Progress for
Nigeria’s Peace and Prosperity, at the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential
Villa, Abuja.
The book is a mid-term scorecard on
the Buhari administration put together by the Presidential Media Team.
Tinubu said although Buhari had used
the last two years to lay foundation for a better Nigeria, many citizens were
still in lack due to the prevailing economic crunch.
He said: “Many of our people are
without basic needs. Too many parents cannot properly feed and clothe their
precious children. Too many young adults exist in the void of joblessness, and
too many of us do not have the resources to care for elderly parents who once
cared for us. We must cure these wrongs”.
He urged the Buhari administration to
hasten and complete the good works it had started.
Tinubu who was special guest of honour
at the occasion said that Nigeria could not make appreciable progress without
robust industrial capacity.
He said “Our national industrial
revolution plan must be more than mere words. It must be refined. Just as the
private sector may partner with government on public endeavours, government
must guide and support the private sector into new areas of industry and
production.
“Government must invest in research
and new products the private sector may find risky and uncertain at the initial
stage. Government policy must push and incentivise the private sector into
production of goods that will be demanded in the immediate future and for some
time to come.
“Whether we focus on steel, textiles,
cars, machinery components, processed agricultural goods, other items, or any
combination of the above, we must manufacture things the rest of the world
wants to buy and not necessarily the things we think are the easiest to do”.
He however accused the administration
of former President Goodluck Jonathan of corruption, saying so much money grew
feet and ran away from the country, faster than Usain Bolt ever could.
He added: “The prior government used
the public treasury as a private hedge fund or a charity that limited giving
only to themselves. One minister and her rogue gallery picked the pocket of this
nation for billions of dollars. While poor at governance, these people could
give a master thief lessons in sleight of hand. In governance, they earned a
red card. But in corruption, they won the gold medal. It was not that our
institutions had become infected by corruption; corruption had become
institutionalised”.
President Buhari seized the occasion
to reiterate his resolve to prosecute anyone who dips his hand in the public
coffers, while he assured that his government was making efforts to ease the
prevailing economic hardship by creating more jobs and social security
platforms for vulnerable families.
He also promised to tame the menace of
herdsmen/farmers’ clashes, kidnapping and armed robberies within the confines
of limited resources, and secure the release of the remaining Chibok
schoolgirls.
Vice president Yemi Osinbajo said the
government had begun investment in various sectors of the economy in the past
two years, to provide succour to citizens.
No comments:
Post a Comment