Tinubu’s Palliative Programme, A Big Joke – Showunmi

Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Otunba Segun Showunmi has said the federal government’s palliative of rice and wholesale delivery of N5billion to state governors to the masses is a big joke.

He further said the various policy summersaults of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led administration has demystified President Bola Tinubu.

Showunmi, a former spokesperson of the PDP presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, said the situation shows that Tinubu is not prepared and competent to rule the country.

The PDP chieftain, at a press conference in Abuja yesterday, added that the president flip-flops “around serious issues,” and said it showed “deep psychopathic ‘I-don’t-care attitude.’”

He wondered why “a nation be in dire straits and those who created the financial and governance mess be shoving it in our face as though we have become a captured nation with no way out of the slavery of helplessness.”

Showunmi stated that the biggest joke was the Federal Government’s rice palliative and N5 billion given to state governors to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal on the citizenry, and it is “like giving the fish to the cat with the expectation of delivery to the rat….”

He stated that Tinubu is confused about its fuel subsidy removal policy, noting that while he claimed to have deregulated and hands off the pricing of petroleum products, his government at the same time, interferes “with it in a veiled return to the subsidy you claim are unable to sustain.”

Showunmi also accused the president of running a voodoo economy, pointing out that he allowed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to float the national currency, which he said, left the people in misery.  

“They have no capability or interest in figuring out and placing consequences on those who ran the forex aground. 

“Now at last check the difference between the bank rate and the black market rate still gives a reasonable headroom for illegal profit, arbitrage they sought to avoid.

“The big issues before the nation in no particular order are, accountability and justice, stabilising the naira, security, national cohesion, the economy (jobs) and national reorientation to mention but a few,” he added.

The former spokesperson noted that the president scrapped the Niger Delta ministry but hurriedly returned it, regretting that at a time Tinubu told Nigerians to make sacrifices, he appointed a 48-member cabinet.

He wondered whether the government should “be that large at a time when a lean cabinet seems more needful given the financial state of the country?”

According to him, the fact that Tinubu started changing the ministerial portfolios even before they start their original assignments, was an indication of trial and error and lack of preparation.

Showunmi stated that in the nearly 82 days has demystified President Tinubu and whatever toga of competence he claimed.