A former Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, has faulted President Bola Tinubu’s Independence Day speech, describing it as “empty”, “rhetorical” and “disappointing”.
Dalung spoke on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, just after President Tinubu addressed the nation as part of activities to mark Nigeria’s 66th Independence celebration.
“Well, the president’s speech, let me begin by saying that it was rhetorical, wishful, ambitious, but very, very disappointing and empty,” the former minister and a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) said on Thursday’s edition of the breakfast show.
According to Dalung, the speech should have done more in the presentation of “successes” recorded by the Tinubu administration since taking office in 2023.
“Because I think a speech by the president at our 66th anniversary—and he said three and a half years in office—should have concentrated more on giving Nigerians accountability; [show] concrete successes recorded so far by the reforms in the last three and a half years,” the former minister said.
Happy Independence day
“The speech would have also tried to look at the issues on the ground like insecurity, agriculture, the economy, unemployment, hunger, poverty, and Nigeria’s foreign policy.
“These would have been the things that the president should have revealed in his speech, and he should have been able to tell as well, from 1960 to when he assumed office, this was the progress made, and then in three and a half years, despite the fact that the government inherited challenges, progress has been made.”
President Tinubu had called for patience with his administration, saying the country was like a cancer patient when he took office in May 2023.
“By 2023, poverty was rising, and hope was nearly gone. The country’s situation was darker than ever. We had no choice but to act,” Tinubu told the nation.
“Nigeria was like a sick patient who receives the terrible news that he has cancer. His doctor explains that the treatment will be difficult and painful, but that it offers a strong prospect of recovery. The patient has a choice. He can begin treatment, endure its discomfort and fight the disease. Or he can ask only for morphine, dull the pain and leave the cancer to spread.”
However, Dalung, who served under former President Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), accused Tinubu of telling Nigerians the “same stories” repeated over the years since the current government took over in 2023.
“But all that the president has done was to tell Nigeria the same stories: ‘Oh, be patient and expect our reforms will yield.’’’
“The question is, when shall the cancer victim recover? Because it does appear that the surgery has put him in a coma,” the Plateau-born Dalung said.
He said, while there has been some growth in the economy, such indices must move beyond “paper presentation” and “translate into the general well-being of the citizens”.
“So if we have recorded 4% economic growth, how has that been able to affect an average Nigerian? Because it has to be translated into putting something before the ordinary Nigerians. How does that 4% affect the cost of transportation and the purchasing power of Nigerians?
“So I think just coming up with statistics of growth has been the way the government has been presenting it. I think he would have done much better to have moved beyond that, to be more practical and realistic, so that we can be able now to know whether the cry, the huge cry by Nigerians, is also rhetorical. But I think the speech was more or less very rhetorical and ambitious,” Dalung said.
He said the President’s speech was not inspiring enough, arguing that it had “no connection” with Nigerians.
“In 1977, when I listened to the then military governor of Plateau State reading his independence speech, and when I was admitted to go to secondary school, I actually connected his speech with the hope he created, because everything the government provided for me.
“The government gave me even transport money. All the instructional materials were provided, food, bedding, and everything. That is how you connect with the generation.”
Dalung also faulted Tinubu for not talking about insecurity, saying, “The president completely abandoned Nigerians who are in captivity. As we are talking, the statistics you roll out are far, far, far beyond that.
“Plateau State, for example, we are already running a full-blown war, because every day there is one attack or the other. Every day there are mass burials, so we are at war,” he said.