Join nationwide protests – Ex-SGF, Lawal tells Tinubu, Buhari

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Dr Babachir Lawal has challenged President Bola Tinubu to address the nation immediately with persuasive arguments to placate the angry and hungry citizens instead of issuing threats against the planned hunger protests.

The renowned technocrat warned that under the current climate, Nigerians can no longer be intimidated by the government ‘or scared by macho tough talk’.

In the suggested address to the nation, Babachir Lawal asked the President to enumerate concrete and believable policies of government intended to address current.challenges on an immediate, medium and long term basis.

In a press statement released on Tuesday in Abuja, the ex-SGF suggested that the immediate term plans must be believable and actionable and designed to solve the immediate hunger needs of the people, while the medium and long term plans should be ones that address the challenges of the economy and security across all sections of the nation.

Apparently reacting to the build-up to the nationwide protests, he said that immediate plans must be achievable and believable so they can engender trust and secure the cooperation of the people in the implementation.

He wrote: “If I had the ears of Alhaji Bola Tinubu and I know he used to have listening ears, I would advise him thus: President must reshuffle the cabinet, replace dead woods and include more politicians in the cabinet. Cabinet in times like this requires a mix of technocrats and politicians.

“Politicians are more adept at communicating with the people and have more stake in the successes or failures of a government.

“The Lagos technocrats that now fill the MDAs lack knowledge of the workings of Nigeria.

“Majority of them are rude, inaccessible, clannish, and mostly kleptocratic and kleptomaniac (apologies to Ndume).

“Purposefully address the excessive nepotism in this government. The South West dominates this government excessively and obnoxiously.

“More than eighty percent of the revenue generation and spending MDAs are held by indigenes of the South West. The same occurs in the National Assembly where the most important committees are chaired by indigenes of the South West.

“These people behave like conquerors and are treating the rest of us Nigerians as prisoners of war.

“The Senate leadership operates a dictatorship in which no dissent is tolerated. This is insidiously building an imperceptible revolt that might soon explode.

“For example, Senator Ndume was sincerely speaking truth to power when he said the President is unreachable. Ndume is a very brilliant senior politician and legislator who has been in the National Assembly since 2003.

“Aside being Chair of many critical committees in both Houses of the National Assembly, he has been a Minority Leader, a Chief Whip and a Majority Leader.

“He has much more experience in legislative and political leadership than the charlatans that you have installed in leadership positions just so they can do your bidding slavishly as they are now wont to do.

“A slavish legislature is neither good for your long term interests nor that of the country at large.

“People are taking exceptions to these ways of handling contrary opinions in the polity. In the north we have taken great exception to the manner in which you or people acting on your behalf maltreated, Nasiru, Ningi, Ndume and lately Dangote.

“Your very close associates are also busy meddling in the affairs of Senior traditional institutions in the North West which we believe has the intended purpose of dismembering northern political and social harmony and hegemony.

“In the South East, your fixation on Peter Obi and the unfair treatment of Igbo businesses in Lagos is unsettling. There is also no denying the fact that political crises in Rivers State would have been long settled had the President shown inclination to resolve it.

“It is instructive that no individual or institution in the South West has suffered such unjust treatments.

“These kinds of situations are some of the triggers of the current discontent across the nation because they generate dispersed pockets of frustration and malcontents that eventually aggregate into a large whole resulting in bad blood against the person of the President and the government.

“Per adventure these actions are carried out by the President’s surrogates, probably without his knowledge or consent, it is very necessary that he avails himself to people who could bring such matters to his notice.

“But as it were, it appears like the hand is that of Esau but the voice is that of Jacob.

“I wish all Nigerians a very joyous and peaceful hunger protest. It will make my day if I were to see the President and his immediate predecessor among the Abuja segment of the protesters as they used to do during the Goodluck Jonathan era.”