Cost Of Living: Nigerians Angry With Govt Officials – Shettima
Vice-President Kashim Shettima has said the poor in the country are angry with government officials and other members of the elite, who constitute the minority.
The vice-president said this at the graduation ceremony of the Executive Intelligence Management Course 16 participants from different security agencies and nominees of state governments in Abuja on Saturday. The event was organised by the National Institute for Security Studies.
This is the first time a senior government official is admitting the biting hardship in the country, which has been aggravated since President Bola Tinubu took over the reins of government on May 29, 2023.
In his inauguration speech, the President had declared that subsidy on petrol was gone for good, and hours after that statement, the pump price of petrol jumped from N238-N263 per litre to a minimum of N500. It currently sells for between N580 and N615.
“All of us here belong to a tiny segment of the Nigerian population. And you don’t need a soothsayer to tell you that the poor are angry with us. Go to the slums and mingle with the poor. I am a native of Maiduguri (Borno State Capital). Anytime a rich man brought a new car to his house, it (the house) used to be a place of pilgrimage.
“People (used to) go and see not out of anger, but out of admiration. But now, as we cruise around in our bulletproof cars, one will see contempt in the eyes of the poor. We have to improve the quality of governance. And what we have is a tiny window of not more than 10 to 20 years. Let’s improve the quality of governance.”
He also noted that creating jobs and giving hope to the populace would help curb insecurity in the country.
The VP added, “Let’s create jobs; let’s give hope to the populace. And once we create jobs, all this madness of insecurity will disappear. There won’t be Boko Haram and banditry if this is done, especially for us from the North. We can blame the bandits, but we in leadership positions owe it to posterity to address this.
“They (the poor) are the most neglected segment of our society. You can hardly differentiate between them and their animals. Even the animals they rear belong to those in the city. So, there have to be kinetic and non-kinetic solutions to all the problems. Be it the IPOB agitation in the South-East; be it the challenges in the South-South; be it Boko Haram or rural banditry in the North-East, North-West, and North-Central.”
He, however, urged the citizens to be patient with the President and support his efforts to reposition the country.
“I want to ask you to give the President the benefit of the doubt. Let us support you. Let us rally around and be reassured that he is determined to redefine the meaning and concept of modern leadership, and is ever ready to reposition the Nigerian nation. But without the support of you and I, he can’t do much,” the VP said.
He berated those seeking to secede from the country, noting that they “hardly think beyond their noses.”