Prof. Udenta Udenta, the former National Secretary of the Alliance for Democracy, has asked President Bola Tinubu to reshuffle his cabinet.
In a press statement released on Thursday, Udenta addressed the recent statewide anti-hunger demonstration and the status of the nation, stating that Tinubu could not continue to manage the country in the manner he is.
He maintained that unless hunger was alleviated, poverty was reduced, prices of staple food items fell significantly, inflationary pressures were relieved, naira depreciation was reversed, and petroleum product prices were made affordable to the people, the country could expect more hunger protests in the near future.
Chronicle NG reports that the nationwide protest tagged ‘Hunger Protest’ and #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria rocked Lagos, Kaduna, Abuja, Kano, Osun, Oyo, and other states between August 1 and 10, 2024.
Over a thousand individuals were reportedly arrested, and the police put the death toll at seven, despite civil society organisations claiming that up to a score of people were slain.
Tinubu, who addressed the country on August 4, claimed he had heard the youths’ pleas and encouraged them to stop the protests.
The demonstrators, who continued with dwindling vigour until August 10, said that the President failed to answer their requests, which included the reversal of fuel subsidy elimination, a drop in food prices, a revision of the constitution, and a reduction in electricity costs, among others.
For Udenta, the protest is an unnecessary response to the land’s distress.
“President Tinubu should, as a matter of urgency, re-constitute his cabinet and incorporate elements within the organised political opposition and civic groups as President Olusegun Obasanjo did in 1999 and Musa Yar’ardua did in 2007.
“The outcome of such an arrangement will not be a coalition government or a government of national unity in its ‘normal’ institutional appearance; it’s rather a way of re-building political trust and constructing elite consensus and thus enacting one of the pre-conditions for any meaningful impact of economic policies to be felt,” Udenta said.
He noted that “anybody who tells President Tinubu that he can continue to govern as he is presently doing doesn’t mean well to him and the long-suffering Nigerian people.
“I observed about three years ago that given the gradual disintegration of the state and the weakening of the historicist logic that undergirds it, it’s in plain sight that no one single party, no one single faction of the elite, can govern Nigeria without it falling apart in no distant time.
“What is required now—for the sake of the nation and beyond the narrow permutations and interests of partisan warlords—is a rethink of the foundational logic that President Tinubu underpinned his presidency.
“As was drawn to me by a deeply knowledgeable player in the nation’s ideas circuit, President Tinubu’s national broadcast did not contain one line of presidential proclamations, presidential convening orders, or presidential directives! Not one line!”
He went on to say that Tinubu should quickly convene a conclave of the nation’s leading political players, including his counterparts in the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, as well as the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress and members of the aforementioned parties.
Udenta believes that at the conclusion of the conclave, Tinubu should re-establish the Office of Special Adviser to the President on Inter-Party Relations.
He stated, “My personal suggestion on the stalwarts to invite to such a gathering are individuals I have neither discussed this matter with nor do I really know how they will individually react to it: Femi Falana SAN, Dr Olisa Agbakoba SAN, Annkio Briggs, Clem Nwankwo, Sen Shehu Sani, Dr Kole Shettima, Owei Lakemfa, Prof Sam Amadi, Prof Jibrin Ibrahim, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, Prof Chidi Odinkalu, and Ene Obi.
Others are, “Omoyele Sowore, Amb Nkoyo Toyo, Deji Adeyanju, Dele Farotimi, and Aisha Yesufu.”
According to Udenta, these are patriots with impeccable credentials and a proud history of telling unvarnished truth to power.
