A member of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, Prof. Usman Yusuf, said the ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda of President Bola Tinubu has turned to hopelessness.
Yusuf, a former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), stated this during an interview on a television programme at the weekend.
According to him, Tinubu’s government performance after one year in office does not encapsulate his ‘Renewed Hope’ campaign mantra, saying rather than inject the Nigerian people with some hope capsules, the Tinubu administration has made Nigerians more hopeless in the last one year.
He said, “People have lost hope. It pains me to see our people lining up to collect cups of palliatives. ‘Renewed Hope’ has turned into hopelessness. People have lost hope. The last one year has been a year of nothing but deception, destitution and hopelessness.
“From next week, they will start telling us their propaganda. What have they done to benefit the ordinary people? In a span of one year, they have brought millions of people back into multi-dimensional poverty; they have pushed millions more children out of school because their parents cannot pay their school fees”.
Tinubu, whose campaign mantra was: ‘Renewed Hope’, was sworn-in as President on May 29, 2023 after a keenly contested election in February of the same year. He hastily introduced some reforms such as petrol subsidy removal and the unification of the foreign exchange windows. However, both policies have been widely criticised, as Nigerians battle galloping inflation and skyrocketing cost of living, which have sparked protests in some parts of the country.
With the inflationary pressure and the attendant effects on the economy, the Tinubu administration continued to appeal Nigerians to bear the pain of the moment which it promised would be temporary.
However, Yusuf said: “The last one year has been a year of nothing but deception, destitution and hopelessness”. He described the economic management team of the President as “tax collectors” rather than “economists”.
He stressed that 80 percent of the problems bedevilling the country rest squarely with the governors.
According to him, “We, in the North, are richer than the South in many ways; if we concentrate on three things: agriculture, solid minerals and solar, we will be done”.
Since inception, the President Tinubu administration has introduced some reforms such as petrol subsidy removal and the unification of the foreign exchange windows.
