Mixed reactions have greeted President Bola Tinubu’s broadcast with some stakeholders applauding and some berating his policy statements on the nation’s economy.
Prof. Alewo Akubo, the Vice Chancellor of Salem University, Lokoja, said on Tuesday that aside of “dowsing the tension and anxiety in the hungry and angry citizens”, the speech lacked the desired substance.
Akubo said that the quick manner the president addressed the nation in the face of the biting economic hardship was apt and commendable.
“Unlike the former president Muhammadu Buhari, who hardly bother to address critical national issues on time, Tinubu has shown some level of maturity and understanding of the plights of the citizens.
“What his speech lacked was deliberate and biting actions that could raise the hope of the common man, especially on the comatose refineries and the high price of petrol.
“What most people were expecting was a reversal of pump price of petrol to N540.00 per litre to cushion the effects of the fuel subsidy removal, but to no avail,” he said.
While noting that Nigerians expected actions that can change the hard times without much delay, the vice-chancellor advised the president to throw something tangible on the people rather than promises.
Also speaking, Mr Emmanuel Onoja, the Kogi Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), described the president’s speech as “good” and “straight to the point”.
Onoja praised Tinubu for showing Nigerians and the international community that he is worried over the economic hardship being experienced in the country.
“To me, the speech is a symbol of hope to all citizens looking at the transport, health, education, economic sectors he promised to address their challenges for the good of all,” the APC scribe said.
On his part, Mr Eleojo Opaluwa, the state Vice Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said that the broadcast was far from the reality of things.
Opaluwa said: “If we carry out a research on the cause of the pain in Nigeria today, it is nothing but the non-functionality of our refineries, leading to the import of refined petroleum products.
“Unfortunately, in Mr President’s speech, there was no where that he made reference to how our refineries can be made to function soon.
“I believe that once we start refining our crude locally, it will force down the price of PMS, and the hardship being experienced by Nigerians, will significantly reduced.
“To sum it all, president Tinubu’s speech has not addressed the real issues,” he said.
Amb. Idris Muraina, the Chairman, Kogi Network of Non-Governmental Organizations (KONGONET), described the national broadcast by the president as an interesting message.
Muraina said that the speech goes to show that he is listening to citizens concerns, which longed for government from local, state and national levels to address.
“Secondly, the contents of the broadcast are strategic and well outlined, only that I have a great deal of concern with the monitoring mechanism that the government will employ.
“The president would have done well to mention names of stakeholders to be engaged to monitor effective and smooth implementation of all the initiatives he outlined.
“It is on record that the past government gave an order for 50,000 tones of grains to be distributed across the country as a palliative for COVID-19, which we at the civic space never saw how it went especially at the state level.
“We are always worried that when lofty initiatives of this nature are floated, it always hit the rock at the state and local government levels largely due to poor monitoring mechanism,” he lamented.
Dr Joshua Silas, the branch Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Federal University Lokoja (FUL), said that the president’s speech lacked biting teeth.
Silas noted that the speech was also deficient of concrete actions on some of his (Tinubu’s) policy statements and “therefore fell short of the expectations of Nigerians”.
