A former adviser to President Bola Tinubu on political matters, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has criticised the current administration, stating that it has failed to improve both the quality of life for the average Nigerian and the standard of governance.
Baba-Ahmed made the remarks on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm programme, aired on Tuesday.
“Clearly, the Tinubu administration has failed expectations that it was going to radically improve the quality of governance of (former) President (Muhammadu) Buhari,” he said.
According to Baba-Ahmed, a former spokesperson for the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, the removal of the petrol subsidy by the Tinubu government has significantly impacted the quality of life for ordinary Nigerians.
He noted that although it would be unrealistic for the current president to reverse the subsidy removal, he ought to address what he described as the wastage of resources accruing to state and local governments from the savings generated by the policy.
Baba-Ahmed urged the president to take meaningful steps to enhance accountability and improve governance across all three tiers of government.
The former presidential adviser called on Tinubu to confront corruption and insecurity, alleviate poverty, prioritise infrastructure and social development, and exercise his executive powers to ensure that funds allocated to governors—particularly those from the All Progressives Congress—are used responsibly.
“So much waste, so much abuse of resources and corruption going on,” he lamented.
The former NEF spokesman further asserted that the presidents who have governed Nigeria since 1999 have each proven worse than their predecessors.
“Nigeria is a tragedy. Even though we have a democratic system, the key element has been missing: that element is the idea that people elect leaders to serve, protect their resources, and use their resources to build a country that is in the interest of the citizens,” he added.
