Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has criticized President Bola Tinubu’s recent broadcast speech addressing the ongoing nationwide protests, calling it underwhelming and disconnected from the concerns of the protesters.
In a nationwide address on Sunday, President Tinubu spoke about the #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protests, which began on August 1. The protesters have been demanding the reinstatement of fuel subsidies, improvements in living standards, reductions in the cost of governance, lower electricity tariffs, and solutions to escalating insecurity, among other issues.
Ezekwesili, in a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), described Tinubu’s speech as a “monumental missed opportunity.” She argued that the President failed to provide substantial answers or present a clear plan of action to address the protesters’ grievances.
She criticized the speech for not resonating with the citizens’ concerns, describing it as being written from a mindset more focused on “getting back at enemies” rather than addressing the issues at hand. Ezekwesili emphasized that a true leader should not see any of their citizens as enemies.
Ezekwesili wrote, “As one of the millions of Nigerians who were at church when you delivered your late-in-coming speech to citizens on the #EndBadGovernancelnNigeria protests, let me loudly say it was terribly underwhelming to read.
“Your speech reads like a page from your party manifesto and terribly failed to connect to what our citizens on the streets are angry and protesting about.
“Your speech is quite a monumental missed opportunity to placate citizens with sound answers and an outline of convincing evidence-based actions that you and your administration will immediately take to address the priority #BadGovernance concerns.
“Your speech was sadly again written out of a mindset that is focused on ‘getting back at our enemies.’ Imaginary enemies at that! No true leader has the luxury of having ‘enemies’ among their citizens. Not at all. A public leader becomes the leader of all with a mind that does not think of any as their enemies.”
She further condemned the tendency of Nigerian public leaders to avoid taking responsibility for the demands of their office. Ezekwesili also called on security agencies to arrest personnel who have harmed or killed citizens during the protests to serve as a deterrent to others.
“It is nauseating to observe this recurrent innate unwillingness of Nigerian public leaders to admit responsibility for the demands of the same public leadership that they kill and maim citizens to assume,” she continued.
“Nigerians have now realized that they must collectively speak up and take action; otherwise, their self-obsessed rulers (and not leaders) will not pay them any heed at all.”
“As we remember and pray for the families of all our citizens maimed or killed for demanding an end to bad governance, let me call on you to immediately instruct the Inspector General of Police and his men to stop killing peaceful protesters now! Also, fish out all law enforcement personnel that have killed and maimed citizens and ensure they are sanctioned as a deterrence to their colleagues.”
