Eminent lawyer and politician, Owolabi Salis, has called on President Bola Tinubu to implement urgent measures to address the intense hardship faced by Nigerians, incredibly the impoverished.
Salis, popularly called Oba Mekunu, also emphasised the need for the government to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor by ensuring access to basic needs.
He further stressed the importance of taxing the rich to support the poor and urged the government to take action to alleviate poverty and provide essential resources.
The lawyer also highlighted the spiritual consequences of allowing people to suffer from hunger and lack of access to healthcare.
Salis cited historical and spiritual references to emphasise the moral imperative of addressing poverty and ensuring the well-being of every individual.
He called for compassionate governance that prioritises the needs of the less privileged and avoids corruption and mismanagement of resources meant for the poor.
Salis stated, “While it is true that the economic hardship today being experienced in the country was essentially a carry-over effect of the misgovernance of past leaders, it still behoves on the president to chart a course that would redeem the starving poverty-stricken class from the socio-economic stupor in which they are currently entangled.
“Mr. President, it is needless to emphasise a basic fact that you do something urgently to grapple with this task, considering the crucial essence of human life at stake. The government must bridge the gap between the rich and the poor to ensure access to basic needs.
“This often requires taxing the rich to support the poor in assuring these basic needs. The rich do not need the government to provide food or health for them. They have money to buy them. But people with low incomes who can not do so must be assisted by the government. That is governance.
“As a lawyer and keen student of history and world politics, I will shudder from the predictably usual, even if realistic, reference to inevitable bloody revolution simply because I am an apostle of peace who has no option than to pray for and support your government, in the interest of peace without which no meaningful success could be achieved.
“Rather, my fundamental aim at this juncture is to appeal to your conscience,” Salis remarked in an apparent reference to Tinubu. “As a religious leader, apart from being a politician, I can confirm with every authority at my disposal that there are grave spiritual consequences, anyone I’d allowed to die in intense pains and agony as a result of hunger and starvation and inability to afford or access good health facilities and medication for effective cure of ailments.
“Quote me whoever subjects a soul to pains and sufferings directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, and the carrier of the soul dies such a person’s soul may not be reposed.
“This is in alignment with the spiritual law of justice” “No wonder that George Washington did declare in his first inaugural address on 30th April 1789, that ‘the propitious smiles of “heaven” can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and rights which “heaven” itself has ordained’.
“As it is with nations, so it is with us as individuals,” said the Ikorodu-born Lagosian who, in 2019, contested for governorship on the platform of Alliance For Democracy. He stated further: “The right to life and well-being is a cardinal right of every human being.
“To, therefore, deny them life, in whatever guise, whether consciously or otherwise, through lack of food and inability to afforessentialic medication, especially at critical times of need, is, to say the least, highly unfair. Therefore, a system in which people experiencing poverty are denied food, and good health will be relegating them to the level of a sub-human beast.
“This indeed will be the height of man’s inhumanity to man.”It is an interestingly curious coincidence that capitalism and socialism converge at a common point of understanding on this essential point despite their opposingly extreme placing on the ideological divide. We could see how both protect the interests of the economically weak and helpless poor by cushioning them from the unpleasant ravages of market forces.
“That is governance with a human face, and this exactly is what we call upon our esteemed leader to observe to the hilt, and not just by sheer cosmetic measure.
“In other words, not only should this be done, but effectively be seen to be done quite unlike ugly scenarios of the past, in which money meant for the poor in strategic custody of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs eventually found their level as water essentially does, in private pockets of the very custodian to which they are entrusted.
“Basic needs that can inflict pain and suffering differ in many countries, but in Nigeria, they are food and health. In cold countries, for example, you add shelter. Tinubu and the governors need to bridge the gap in nutrition and health. Every Nigerian should have access to food and health.
“Today, lots of poor people are dying of hunger and lack of money to buy medical drugs to attend to ailments. I emphasise again that as a religious leader and a politician, I can confirm that there are spiritual consequences if anyone allows innocent people to die of pain and suffering.
“Lack of food and medications can inflict on the people pain and suffering. Quote me again: “Whoever subjects an innocent soul to pains and sorrows and the carrier of the soul dies, such a person’s soul may not be reposed.
“At this stage, we should be compassionate enough as to be touched by lamentable scenarios in which innocent children are starving, and children of the poor dropping out of school for inability to eat even a square meal a day, let alone afford the payment of school fees?
“Human beings resort to animal feeds for survival, and ladies desperate for marriage as a way out of economic hardship end up being strangled and sacrificed by their boyfriends for money rituals.
“Ironically, the wealthy elites and their discussions in government wallow in comfort while their children are far away in luxury abroad, attending the most expensive schools there,” he said.
