Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Public Communication and Orientation, Mr Sunday Dare, has called for patience over President Bola Tinubu administration’s reforms, saying the Nigerian leader should be commended for his policies.
“You know, the subsidy was draining this country. A few hundred were making billions out of it. Every president said they would stop subsidy. None of them did. Let’s give this man some credit. We might not like it,” Dare said on Thursday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
President Tinubu declared an end to the subsidy regime during his inauguration and later floated the country’s currency – all part of his administration’s reforms.
The moves have seen the cost of the essential product move from about N200 per litre to over N1,000 across the country, pushing it beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians who rely on the commodity to power their vehicles, homes, and businesses.
But Dare says the president is working tirelessly to fix the issues and make good his promises to the country.
“Tinubu is adept at governance. [He is] a man who burns the midnight oil when other men of easy virtue are carousing around,” the former minister of sports and youth development said.
“This is a man I worked with for seven years and we sleep at 4 5, 6 in the morning.”
According to Dare, the removal of subsidy on fuel and other reforms by the Tinubu government are audacious moves.
He said his principal took the “road less travelled” by rolling out those policies. Despite the harsh effects of those programmes, Dare says what Tinubu “has been doing is trying to fix the problem”.
Protests over the harsh economic conditions were held in August this year and another one in October as part of a push to make the president reconsider the policies.
Although Tinubu acknowledged the difficulties posed by his administration’s reforms, he has stuck to them, calling on Nigerians to be patient as they would yield dividends in due time.
