Tinubu’s best not yet good enough, Fayose tells vacationing President as Nigerians grapple with multiplier effects of fuel price increase
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Bola Tinubu needs to do more to end the nationwide Great Hardship festering on his watch, former Ekiti Governor Ayo Fayose has told the President, who seems more keen building monuments to himself and his wife Remi (several of such in one year alone) to consolidate and imprint his state capture in the hearts of Nigerians rather than militating hunger ravaging the land.
Tinubu on June 12 unveiled a portrait of himself at Eagles Square in Abuja (described as “the world’s largest painting portrait on canvass”) and is currently luxuriating in Paris after enjoying himself in London, in the course of sending himself on two weeks’ vacation on October 2 travelling on his newly acquired $150 million presidential jet.
Sycophantic lawmakers in the House of Representatives on October 10 concluded the first reading of a bill to establish a Bola Ahmed Tinubu Federal University to teach “Nigerian languages” – when existing universities which have departments of “Nigerian languages” are grossly under-funded.
Besides, the Minna International Airport, previously named after Abubakar Iman, was renamed after Bola Tinubu in March, a day before his visit to Niger State to commission projects on the invitation of Governor Mohammed Bago, a member of Tinubu’s political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In August 2023, Remi renamed the main auditorium of Maryam Babangida National Centre for Women Development in Abuja after Maryam Abacha, to rehabilitate the image of the wife of the brutal late military dictator and treasury looter, Sani Abacha.
Remi renamed the space formerly called African Peace Mission Hall without legal authority, for her so-called title of First Lady is not recognised by the Constitution; she is only (incidentally) the wife of the President and has no official role in government.
A few days later, Maryam returned the gesture by getting the Maryam Abacha American University of Nigeria (AAUN), Kano to rename its School of Law building after Remi Tinubu.
And Remi’s statue was at the weekend unveiled at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife by the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi, three weeks after she organised a competition to choose the designer of a “unity fabric” and awarded a N25 million prize to the winner, with the fabric touted as signifying a “united Nigeria” on the country’s 64th independence anniversary.
The statue, a golden image – somewhat the female version of that of Biblical Nebuchadnezzar – was unveiled the same day that a 2.7-kilometre road on the campus was named Senator Oluremi Tinubu Way; accolades which spurred her to donate N1 billion to OAU on the spot to “restore the horticultural landscape” for which the school was renowned when she was a student there.
Before now, Reagan Memorial Baptist Nursery and Primary School in Iwaya, Yaba, Lagos, was renamed Oluremi Tinubu Primary School in March 2020, in a state her husband has tightly controlled in all facets since 1999 like a personal property.
Reagan was a missionary who contributed to establishment of the school and to the development of Nigeria’s education in general. Remi, however, is not known publicly to have contributed to the country’s education – not even when she was a Senator for 12 years – to remotely account for her image laundery in the sector.
Fayose said Tinubu may claim to be doing his best to make things better for Nigerians but stressed that whatever he is doing is not enough.
“It’s not been too easy, that is the truth for Nigerians, but I think that this government naturally, is given their best but their best still needs to be upped,” he declared on Channels Television.
“If you say they need time, people will begin to question to say, what time do they need? Yes, I agree that it has not been too easy for Nigerians, but I know that with little time things could get better; that is what I can say.”
Tinubu pushes citizens to the brink of extinction with incessant fuel price rises
NNPC Retail, recently acquired by OVH – a firm in which Oando Oil Chief Executive Officer and President Bola Tinubu’s nephew, Wale Tinubu, has interest – on October 6 raised fuel pump price to N1,030 per litre at its official outlets but is higher at private stations.
This is the second increase in one month, from N617 per litre to N897 in September and now to N1,030 – and the third rise in one year, from N195 per litre to between N448 and N557 in May 2023.
The latest price increase has pushed up transportation costs further as well as the inflationary multiplier effects on all goods and services for a population already on the edge of a precipice.
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Joe Ajaero has criticised the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) for deciding the pump price of refined petroleum produced by Dangote Refinery, even though the government insists it has no hand in the latest price increase.
“As we are sitting down here, they have gone to increase the pump price of petroleum again. Now what do you do in such instances?” Ajaero lamented in Abuja.
“They expect us to buy it. Even, things we have been asking for, CNG as an alternative; for more than one year, we have been asking for the commencement of work at the Port Harcourt Refinery; we had an agreement to that effect – the NLC, TUC [Trade Union Congress], and the federal government.
“We have heard that Dangote Refinery is producing locally and prices are going up. All the indices they gave to us about the need to deregulate have proven negative. You are fixing prices as a private company.
“As far as I’m concerned, except something has happened to CAC [Corporate Affairs Commission], NNPCL is now a private company. Can that same NNPCL dictate the price for Dangote and other private companies? Those are issues, those are questions begging for answers.”
Meanwhile, Tinubu remains on luxury holiday abroad, burning up more scarce dollars, and Remi his wife is being decked up with a statue at home as other citizens reel more under the hardship meted out to them by Tinubu’s poorly implemented policies.
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