Solomon Dalung, a former Minister of Sports in the Buhari administration, has mocked President Bola Tinubu following the excruciating economic hardship and hunger in Nigeria, asking him to perform his Lagos miracles’
Tinubu was the governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007.
During his campaign for the highest office in the land, Tinubu emphasised that he built Lagos to a model for good governance, infrastructure renewal and innovation and asked that he should be given the chance to replicate such in Nigeria.
However, policies introduced by the president have not addressed the needs of Nigerians, but plunged the country into further hardship in some instances.
This, some of Tinubu’s allies have blamed on the past. Recently, Senator Gbenga Daniel, a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said Tinubu inherited a dead economy.
But in a series of posts via X, the former minister described attempts by the President Tinubu-led administration to consistently blame Buhari for Nigeria’s economic challenges, as hypocritical.
Dalung said if Tinubu’s administration devoted the same resources and effort used during elections and tribunals to tackle security and economic issues, significant improvements would have been achieved.
According to him, blaming Buhari for economic woes wouldn’t alleviate the hardships faced by the people.
While acknowledging Buhari’s failure to fulfill the “change” promise, Dalung maintained that the responsibility for Nigeria’s economic woes lies with Tinubu’s government due to its reckless policies.
He wrote: “Blaming #MBuhari for economic woes cannot address the economic situation confronting the people? Can bulk trading be the only solution for #officialABAT & his economic team? The pregnant situation deserves urgent prescriptions. Hunger & high cost of living is at unbearable level.
“The attempt to change narratives of #officialABAT from “don’t pity me, I look for the job and got it” to blaming Buhari by #BwalaDaniel #aonanuga1956 & Co travellers is uncharitable hypocrisy, #officialABAT knew all these problems, yet “he snatched power and run away with it.
“An empty stomach does not listen to the voice of the gospel, the echoes of concerns especially traditional rulers cannot be ignored. I lean my voice to it, #officialABAT hunger is a recipe for disaster, can you sit back at home and engage broadly if your wisdom cannot provide solutions?
“If #officialABAT deploys the same energy, knowledge, tactics & money during elections & tribunal to deal with Nigeria’s security & economic challenges, things will change. Why has the steam suddenly changed to blaming Daura? You have snatched power, oya perform your Lagos miracles.”
Meanwhile, the federal government has revealled plans to reopen the borders to encourage the importation of cement and other commodities if the manufacturers refuse to reduce the prices.
The minister of Housing and Development, Arc Ahmed Dangiwa, stated this in Abuja on Tuesday.
Dangiwa stated that key input materials for cement production such as limestone, clay, silica sand, and gypsum sourced within our borders, should not be dollar-rated.
The minister said the border was closed to the importation of cement to help local manufacturers “but if the government decides to open it back for mass importation, prices of cement would crash and local manufacturers would be gravely affected”.
Dangiwa who called on the manufacturers to be more patriotic said BUA cement for instance “has been willing and is still willing as at the last time he spoke with them to crash the price of their cement, lower than the N7000, N8000 agreed by the manufactures” and he sees no reason why the others cannot do the same.
“The challenges you speak of, many countries are facing the same challenges and some even worse than that but as patriotic citizens, we have to rally around whenever there is a crisis to change the situation.
“The gas price you spoke of, we know that we produce gas in the country the only thing you can say is that maybe it is not enough. Even if you say about 50 percent of your production cost is spent on gas prices, we still produce gas in Nigeria it’s just that some of the manufacturers take advantage of the situation. As for the mining equipment that you mentioned, you buy equipment and it takes years and you are still using it.
“The time you bought it maybe it was at a lower price but because now the dollar is high you are using it as an excuse. Honestly, we have to sit down and look at this critically. The demand and supply should be good for you because the government stopped the importation of cement, they stopped the importation in order to empower you to produce more.
“Otherwise if the government opens the border for mass importation of cement, the price would crash but you would have no business to do and at the same time the employment generation would go down. So these are the kinds of things you have to look at, the efforts of government in ensuring things go well.”
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