Pastor Tunde Bakare’s advice to President Bola Tinubu to ‘kill corruption and not Nigerians’ is one part of his recent message that has got many Nigerians talking.
Development Diaries reports that the Senior Pastor of the Citadel Global Community Church also told his congregation that he warned against the ‘Emilokan’ kind of politics in the West African country.
The prominent cleric made these known during his first ‘State of the Nation’ broadcast since Tinubu assumed office as Nigeria’s president.
Emilokan is a Yoruba saying that means ‘it is my turn’.
The word became popular when it was used by Tinubu during his 2023 pre-election campaign in Ogun State, southwest Nigeria.
Lamenting the adverse effects of subsidy removal on Nigerians, especially the poor and vulnerable citizens, the cleric said no economy can thrive on impunity.
Bakare’s message is only a reminder to Tinubu of the continued state of hardship millions of Nigerians, including the poor and vulnerable citizens, have been forced into by virtue of his economic policies.
The World Bank, in June 2023, disclosed that 7.1 million more Nigerians will be pushed into poverty if properly targeted measures are not taken to manage the impact of fuel subsidy removal.
This points to the already dire situation faced by about 100 million Nigerians who are multidimensionally poor, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Millions of Nigerians are now suffering greater economic hardship as a result of Tinubu’s decision to end fuel subsidy without social interventions.
It has been two weeks since the president, in a broadcast, announced a plan to invest in 3,000 compressed natural gas (CNG) powered buses, introduce a new national minimum wage for workers, boost small businesses, ensure food prices are affordable, and plan to implement interventions that would cushion the pains of Nigerians across socio-economic brackets.
The president gave timelines between July 2023 and March 2024. However, Nigerians, in August, are still waiting for the start of implementation.
Development Diaries, therefore, calls on the president to ensure the urgent implementation of his intervention plans in response to Bakare’s valid criticism of his administration’s policies.
Photo source: Tunde Bakare
