A former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has described as misguided the call from certain quarters that President Bola Tinubu should step down from office for alleged poor performance.
Shittu, who spoke in an interview with our correspondent, insisted that it was too early in the day to pass a verdict on Tinubu’s government, which started only a little over a year ago.
Some northern politicians had expressed discontent with the President, citing what they described as unfair policies and marginalisation, an allegation that Vice President Kashim Shettima has since debunked.
In April, a spokesman for the Northern Elders Forum, Abdulaziz Suleiman, said the forum regretted supporting Tinubu, adding that with the increased security challenges in the region, the North had learned its lessons.
Two weeks ago, Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, also lent his voice to the agitation, vowing to jettison his presidential ambition if former President Goodluck Jonathan agrees to contest in 2027.
But in an interview with our correspondent on Sunday, Shittu said, “All these talks about the North agitating for power after one year are irrelevant. It is also uncharitable and unwholesome for anybody to see Tinubu as a Southern President. Who is Bala Mohammed? He seems to be acting on his own and he is free to say whatever he wants. It is not a problem for me at all.
“What I see are many frustrated political personalities. Owing to their frustration, they are thinking undemocratically and irrationally. If you run a democracy where elections are held every four years, you can’t start passing judgment on the leadership after a year or two and asking for a change of government. Such a call is treasonable.
“Again, did the problems in Nigeria come up this year or last year? It has been there in the last 30 years when successive governments were in power, including the 16 years of PDP maladministration. Since Tinubu came into office, nobody has accused him of corruption. We all know the previous government has been postponing Nigeria’s evil days. I am confident we will have relief to our problems solved within the next one year.”
The Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress in Lagos, Cornelius Ojelabi, expressed the same view in a separate interview.
Ojelabi said, “They are looking for a candidate to fly and we have one already. We have a sitting President who has just spent one year in office. How do you then assess one out of the four-year tenure? It is not enough. We need to look at what the man has done in the last four years. He deserves to be given kudos and more time to see the realisation of the Renewed Hope Agenda.
“The problem we are having is not peculiar to Nigeria alone. It is a global phenomenon and I can assure Nigerians categorically that things will get back as we move on. It is not an issue of whether the northerners are happy with Mr President or not. His focus is to see the economy of Nigeria around and make it much better.
“He is pursuing that with all seriousness and you can see the sort of reforms he has injected into it so that things can get better. Once we can achieve that, whatever form of validation anybody is agitating will be a thing of the past.”
Madukwe B. Nwabuisi is an accomplished journalist renown for his fearless reporting style and extensive expertise in the field. He is an investigative journalist, who has established himself as a kamikaze reporter.
