Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesperson of ADC
The opposition coalition African Democratic Congress (ADC) has turned to shreds President Bola Tinubu’s Nigeria at 65 independence address, saying it failed to capture the historical significance of the celebration.
Analysing the broadcast in which President Tinubu dwelt extensively on the achievements of his administration, spokesperson of the ADC, Bolaji Abdullahi, insisted that the Independence Day celebration was not about his government but the country.
Carpeting the President’s speech writers for failure “to understand the historical significance of this moment”, Abdullahi said it should rather have spoken to Nigeria’s history instead of his administration’s performance.
The ADC spokesman accused Tinubu of speaking as a party man instead of as a national leader, contending that the speech “failed to speak to our past and inspire our future.”
According to him, “Listening to the President, you will think he was delivering his budget speech, annual performance review, rather than speaking to a history of a nation like Nigeria, at this critical time. I was waiting for when the President will anchor everything he was saying within a historical context, but apparently, the President was not able to rise above the limitations of his administration”.
He argued that all the things the President mentioned as achievements in the speech were superficial and propaganda, emphasising that “most of what the president said regarding the economy do not reflect the reality of Nigerians.”
Expressing shock that the President mentioned insecurity in passing, “when every single day, Nigerians live in fear”, Abdullahi said “For me, I think it’s a big disappointment that the President did not understand the historical significance of this moment and rather choose to use the budget speech to say this is what my government has done”.
