Afenifere has shown concern over the near collapse of state of the nation affair, since the new administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over.
Afenifere, in a communiqué issued and signed by the deputy leader, HRH, Oladipo Olaitan and Deputy Secretary General, Alade Rotimi-John at the conclusion of the regular quarterly meeting held on Tuesday, at Isanya-Ogbo, Ogun State.
The group maintained that the distressing state of the nation’s affairs particularly since the assumption of office of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration which one year in the saddle has left the people perplexed and bewildered respecting the direction of the ship of state.
Afenifere noted that the Nigerian people are sorely troubled by the pervasive hardship, crippling hunger, unremitting insecurity in the land, runaway inflation, massive unemployment all of which have left the people worse off than they were at the beginning.
The group also observed the reckless, obstinate and indifferent attitude of the government to the long-term effects of the lack of forethought or purpose regarding the handling of the public revenue.
Afenifere, therefore, rued some of the Tinubu administration’s profligate predilection or inclination to waste resources, stating that $100m or N 240 billion as purchase price for an Airbus A330 as jet for the President and a further $50m to retrofit it is uncalled for.
In addition, Afenifere noted that N950m each as purchase price of a new set of armoured Cadillac Escalade Limousine SUVs as befitting vehicles for the President, N21 billion for renovating a new mansion for the Vice President, N90 billion as subsidy for religious pilgrimage and N10 billion to renovate the Presidential Lodge as Ribadu Road, Lagos among others give an insight of a wasteful nature of the administration.
Afenifere also noted that it is alarmed concerning the present insidious wave of harassment of media who in the course of their professional practice have been deemed to have touched the raw nerves of the administration.
The group urged the Government to possess more than a nodding acquaintance of the provisions of s.39 of the Constitution respecting the constitutional right to freedom of expression and of the press.
In what the group terms recipe for good governance, it reiterates call for a wide-ranging, cost-effective reduction in the cost of governance using the Oronsaye Report as template and the immediate establishment of the machinery for the devolution of powers consistent with a federal arrangement and the heeding of the much- vaunted clamour for restructuring.
