Former political advisor to President Bola Tinubu, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has lambasted the current Tinubu administration for failing to raise both the standard of governance and the standard of living for the typical Nigerian.
Former Northern Elders Forum (NEF) spokesperson Baba-Ahmed claimed that the Tinubu administration’s elimination of the petrol subsidy had a major negative influence on the standard of living for typical Nigerians.
“Clearly, the Tinubu administration has failed expectations that it was going to radically improve the quality of governance,” he said on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm programme aired on Tuesday.
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He stated that even if it was not feasible for the Tinubu administration to undo the elimination of the gas subsidy, he ought to address the “wastage of resources” that state and local governments incur from the funds saved by doing away with the subsidy.
According to Baba-Ahmed, the president ought to take action to improve governance and accountability across the three levels of government.
He asked the president to combat insecurity and corruption, reduce poverty, invest a significant amount of time in social development and infrastructure, and use his presidential authority to make sure that funds allocated to governors—particularly those affiliated with the All Progressives Congress (APC)—are used wisely.
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According to the former NEF spokesperson, Nigeria’s presidents since 1999 have been worse than their predecessors and the Tinubu administration is no exception.
“Nigeria is a tragedy. Even though we have a democratic system, the key element has been missing: that element is the idea that people elect leaders to serve, protect their resources, and use their resources to build a country that is in the interest of the citizens,” he said.
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“Since 1999, every leadership that has taken over has been worse than the previous one. If you start from the first seven years of President (Olusegun) Obasanjo, I think, honestly, he did pretty well but as some versions of his critics say, he faulted his seven years by trying to see if he could get an additional term.
“President (Umaru) Yar’adua came into power and we had some kind of fresh air. Youngish president, visionary and strong but unfortunately, he didn’t last longer than two years.
“(President Goodluck) Jonathan took over and ran the country aground. We fought against Jonathan because we felt Nigeria deserved better leadership than Jonathan. We didn’t realise that we were going to put in place someone who was not even to govern at all.
“Jonathan governed badly; President Buhari didn’t govern at all.
“Now, you have a president who started on a faulty foot and says: ‘I am going to become president because it is my turn’.
Baba-Ahmed further expressed regret that the greed of persons in positions of leadership is the issue facing Nigerian democracy.
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