Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Dumebi Kachikwu has decried worsening insecurity, poor economy, and rising inflation under the current administration.
Kachikwu said all hands must be on deck, to tackle the scourge as the ship will run aground if critical stakeholders don’t act fast, saying “The poor and hungry we ignore today will eat us tomorrow. The terrorists we pamper today will kill us tomorrow. The religion we introduce into politics today will divide us tomorrow. The politics and politicians we avoid today will govern us tomorrow.”
He, however, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to attempt using the remainder of his term to assuage the pains of Nigerians on many fronts due to poor governance.
Kachikwu made the call while delivering an address on the state of the nation yesterday in Abuja.
He said not only the President’s advance team was attacked, and a medium security prison in the nation’s capital was attacked by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a breakaway faction of Boko Haram.
“According to government officials, 879 detainees escaped and among them 68 Boko Haram members some of whom had been involved in previous bombing campaigns. What were known terrorists doing in a medium-security jail? This is one of the questions begging for answers as the Nigerian people reel from one attack after the other,” he said.
Under the Buhari administration, he said Nigeria has witnessed unprecedented calamity second only to the Nigeria civil war.
“From Taraba, Kogi, Niger, Abuja, Katsina, Zamfara, Borno, Sokoto, Kaduna, Ondo, Imo, Anambra, tales of woe. The streets of Nigeria flows with the blood of the innocent,” he said.
He lamented that Nigerians are hungry, Nigerians are suffering, and Nigerians are afraid.
“This is the hill before us. We must understand that we must first have a country before we can talk of elections,” he said.
He also decried lingering fuel scarcity in some cities like Abuja, adding diesel is currently at an all-time high of N800 a litre while the middle class who are the engine room of every society are in dire straits.
“Our children are at home as government and ASUU fritter away their future. I can spend the next 24 hours talking about the failures of this government, but they are all too familiar to us all. How did we get here? How did we let our nation descend to this abysmal level?
“How did we fail on multiple levels with our eyes wide open? Didn’t we have any constitutional safeguards? What is the role of the parliament when the executive fails? What is the role of the media when the government fails? What is the role of society when you have a failed government?” he queried.
Kachikwu added that the most painful part of our collective suffering is that we are too afraid to say anything, adding that the media operate in fear of having their licences suspended or revoked.
