Opinion
Highlights Of President Tinubu’s Independence Day Speech
On paper president Tinubu’s recommendations, especially for the masses, are wonderfully commendable. However, talk is cheap when it comes to implementation. “To boost employment and urban incomes, we are providing investment for enterprises with great potential. Similarly, we are increasing investment in micro, small and medium enterprises,”. Mr. President, sir; what are the criteria for determining ‘enterprises with great potential’, especially with the deliberate hurdles of double-digit interest rates placed by banks on the path of genuine investors?
The speech did not address the challenges faced by small and medium manufacturing companies, especially in the area of huge estimated bills charged by power DISCO companies. Let me remind the president that the private sector, especially small, medium enterprises, are the major employers of labour and are the heart of every nation.
As for “our gallant security forces for keeping us safe”, more has to be done for security personnel. An aggressive, effective insurance life policy should be put in place for our soldiers, to ameliorate the effect of their death on active duty on their families, especially their widowed wives and orphaned children. Also, the same should apply to Police officers who pay the supreme price on active duty. The process of retirement benefits for all security personnel, irrespective of their professional nomenclature, should be reviewed to allow their wives and children access their retirement benefits within sixty days of their demise. Mr. President, please note and implement this.
While the provisional wage increase of “N25,000 each every month for the next six months” for civil servants may be good, you were (deliberately?) silent on a commensurate package for the majority of masses in the private, informal sector! Should the destiny of majority of our masses, citizens, be ‘bounded to the philistines’? Please, from the monthly billions savings made from removal of fuel subsidy, kindly subsidise the ever-rising cost of food, rather than the “social register will be used in the coming weeks to transfer cash to vulnerable Nigerians as a part of the measures to mitigate the effects of rising inflation.” The social register has become a platform for government’s palliative sharing. The social register, as composed, is fraught with loopholes for diversion of so-called palliatives as has been witnessed in certain parts of the nation. Rather than embark on these conditional cash transfers which are directly aimed at members and supporters of political parties, especially based on the party in power across the states.
The president said, “I have inaugurated a Committee on Tax Reforms to improve the efficiency of tax administration in the country”. Mr, President, I am bewildered at the allocation of N5b to this Committee, especially at these times of fuel subsidy removal induced austerity hardship on our citizens, especially with the general groaning and wailing of people across the nation. I cannot reconcile the allocation of N5b to this Committee. Please scale down this humongous amount; It’s unreasonable when our people are crying and government is saying it is searching for money to provide governance!
Mr. President, in all sincerity, the additional N25,000 to each worker for the next six months will further increase inflation, especially without a commensurate production output.
Was it an act of ommission, or deliberate, that the president did not mention the state of repair work on Nigerian refineries in his Independence Day Speech? The state of the refineries and their importance to the welfare of the masses and nation’s economy cannot be over emphasized. Whatever, he promised Nigerians that the refineries will start production in December 2023, just 60 days away! Nigerians are waiting.
Interestingly, the president was silent on trending competition amongst Nigerian universities on the upward review of tuition and other fees. This silence is a tacit confirmation that president Tinubu has surreptitiously approved the increase of university fees across the nation! So, what does government subsidise for its citizens? Education is gradually becoming an exclusive preserve of the rich!
Finally, if anything, the president’s independence day speech is anything but watery, lacking in substance and, a rehash of old, over flogged, hollow promises which can be likened to have emanated from the archive of government’s standard policy.
May God bless Nigeria.