Tinubu’s Speech Justifies Nationwide Protest – Inebehe Effiong

Human rights lawyer and activist, Inibehe Effiong, has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s speech on Sunday, saying it simply justifies why Nigerians are on the streets protesting.

He said “Tinubu’s speech is just a pack of empty words and a time-wasting load of irrelevancies.”

Prime Business Africa reports that President Tinubu addressed Nigerians on Sunday morning regarding the ongoing #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protests nationwide. He called on the protesters to cease, expressing pain over the loss of lives, looting and destruction of public facilities in some states by hoodlums who hijacked the protest.

Reacting, Mr Effiong, a fiery rights activists, in a statement via his X handle, said the president’s speech confirmed his earlier view that Nigeria’s political class is “intentionally deaf and willfully blind to the sufferings and yearnings of Nigerians.”

He said the speech shows the president is clearly disconnected from the reality of the everyday Nigerian. “He’s living in an imaginary Nigeria that only exists in his head. The speech couldn’t have been more meaningless and aimless. Those who wrote it, and Mr. Tinubu who read it out, have succeeded in justifying the reasons for the nationwide protest,” Effiong said.

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He said it is sad that despite what has been witnessed across the country in the last three days of the protests, the president did not deem it necessary to speak on specific demands of protesters. According to him, the president simply did what is typical of “despots.”

The lawyer further pointed out that Tinubu failed to talk about making concessions and cutting cost of governance at this time the county is choking economically, adding that great leaders making sacrifices for the welfare of their citizens.

“A government is only useful if it serves the interest of the governed. This government is anti-people. Tinubu made no mention of electoral reform, no reversal of his horrible and devastating economic policies, he made no attempt to cut down the over bloated size of his government. Tinubu made no concessions. This President only did what despots do; ignore the agitations of the masses.

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“It is not his voice that people wanted to hear, people wanted him to speak directly to their demands. His call for dialogue is in bad faith. He did not address the mindless killing of protesters by security agencies in any meaningful way.

“He also did not set up any credible machinery for a purposeful dialogue. Tinubu is preoccupied with the ridiculous idea that the protest is being sponsored by his political adversaries,” he stated.