Protest: Your Policies are Anti-Masses, Stop them – Afenifere Tells Tinubu

Protest: Your Policies are Anti-Masses, Stop them – Afenifere Tells Tinubu

The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and political group, Afenifere, has knocked President Bola Tinubu for failing to address the real issues of the nationwide #EndBadGovernance and hunger protest.

Prince Justice Fakiyesi, the National Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere group loyal to the Acting Leader Chief Ayo Adebanjo, told reporters that it is unfortunate President Tinubu remains adamant by sticking to anti-masses policies including the subsidy removal without appropriate template for cushioning its devastating effects.

Pointedly criticizing the President’s speech as not tackling the evident hunger problem in the country, Prince Fakiyesi said; “We never believed that just calling for dialogue would change anything. He has never changed.

“His neo-liberal economy is the problem – the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira and he’s bent on continuing it and he does not feel any remorse on how he wants to change but really I don’t think he will change.

“It is unfortunate because we have seen so many countries where these neo-liberal economic policies have not worked.

“I think he was pushed to read the speech because it was not a matter of dialogue or him addressing people about the exact policy that brought hunger and since he is not willing to reverse or accept responsibility, because he more or less said it was politically motivated.

“When he started and he said specifically that subsidy is dead, he said you can protest as much as you like. He said that. He knew that his policies were going to bring protest. At his age he knows that there have been all sorts of protests against subsidy removal.”

Further maintaining that it was disingenuous for President Tinubu to tag the protest as politically motivated, the Afenifere spokesperson questioned; “How could the President make such remarks when he also called for protest under the administration of Goodluck Jonathan because of the same issues being raised by the #EndBadGovernance protesters.

“It is the same thing that happened under former President Goodluck Jonathan and he (Tinubu) called for a revolution or protest and when he is facing the same thing and even worse, he is blaming other people.

“It is time for him to take responsibility for all his anti-people policies and work hard on addressing the biting hardship and hunger Nigerians are currently facing.”

In her reaction, another chieftain of Afenifere and former Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Chief Kofoworola Bucknor Akerele, expressed huge disappointment in the President’s nationwide broadcast on Sunday.

According to her, the speech failed woefully in many aspects as it did not addressed crucial issues of the protest, especially insecurity which has made it difficult for farmers to go to their farms and make food available in abundance to the citizenry.