The governorship candidate of the Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, Dr. Abdul-Azeez Adediran, popularly called JANDOR, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to pay attention to the well-being of Nigerians while living his dream as the country’s leader.
The PDP standard-bearer made the call on Sunday while addressing the press on the state of the nation and hosting members of his campaign council and non-partisan individuals who supported the JANDOR4Governor Project in the 2023 poll.
Speaking with newsmen at the event, which took place at his campaign office in Ikeja, JANDOR noted that Tinubu was now living his dream as the president in realization of his wish, saying that Nigerians too wanted to live their own dream but quickly queried, “I ask myself, what is really happening?”
He charged that the government cannot run a government as if one were running a profit-making organization, saying that they were in office only “to see to the well-being of the people.”
“Today, people are crying. When I see the approach, I am like, no, this is not it. The government comes forward to say, open this for people. No. You are getting it all wrong.
“You don’t have a shortage of food in Nigeria. There is food in the market, but it is expensive, and people cannot afford it. That’s the thing,” he said.
On the fuel subsidy removal, JANDOR said that President Tinubu took a wrong approach, pointing out that what he should have done was to first go to the office and read the handover notes by the previous president and not take such a decision on the very first day in office, “even if you have your own plans.”
“Imagine removing the fuel subsidy the first day. I think the first thing to do if you are elected, even if you have your own plans, is to get to the office first and read the handover notes by the previous president.
“There, you would have seen the reason this man did not remove it or he is still waiting or pushing it to June, as the case may be.
“He should have waited to have a cabinet even if it is a small one or an advisory committee to sit with them to know what to do because right from the day, May 29, that he went there and said subsidy is gone, the market started reacting to it immediately, and we know where we are.
“I think the immediate solution is to press a reset button and say let’s start afresh,” the PDP chieftain stated.
“On what they needed to do, I expected that all these national minimum wage meetings that are going everywhere would have come first because we are going to be removing the subsidy and we know the moment we do that, that will reduce the buying power of the people.
“And what we then need to do is to see how we can shore it up. If tomorrow they decide to say we are going to pay N100,000 or what have you as the minimum wage, who is going to cover for the one-year loss on the side of the people?” he queried.
Speaking on the Oronsaye report, JANDOR expressed pessimism about its successful implementation, arguing that many government parastatals had been created since the report ever emerged, just as he noted that as the document was about to be implemented, the National Assembly was passing the South-East Development Commission.
“I just think that there is a crisis in the land. Right from Jonathan’s days, all of them wanted to implement this report, and just like somebody said, this report can’t work again.
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“This is because from the time when this report came out, how many government parastatals do we have today? Now they have tripled. Even as they are going about promoting the report, the National Assembly is passing the South-East Development Commission. That is an additional agency of government coming up.
“So, I think if they really want to do this, they should be able to tell us in clear terms the amount of money that we’ll be saving. I think the government at the Federal level will need to go back.
“Recently, the president did a broadcast and he said he’s going to set up N75 billion for medium-scale enterprises. Between that time and now, this is March 2024, I don’t know who has benefited from that and everybody is still shouting.
“There is so much knee-jerk approach. Just last week, Mr. President was in Qatar to market Nigeria, to tell people to come and invest in this country, at the same time, existing investors in the country, we are telling them if you don’t pay a particular levy, you’re going to do this or that.
“As a businessman, if I want to go anywhere to do business, all I need to do is go online and check what is happening to the people there as I speak. If I see this is how you are treating them, I won’t bring my money into your economy,” JANDOR said.
