A former presidential spokesman Doyin Okupe says Nigerians are being unfair to President Bola Tinubu.
Okupe, a former Director General of Peter Obi Presidential Campaign, said he met with Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Sunday. He said going his estimation of the reforms of the current government, the President is doing “exceedingly well”.
“He (Tinubu) exceedingly well and he’s going to do much much better. Bola Tinubu needs understanding, not undermining,” Okupe was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday.
“If we do not go through this tough time, the country would have collapsed.”
He said though he backed the Labour Party’s Obi during the 2023 election, the better man won the election.
Okupe said Tinubu has just been in office for 17 months and should be given some more time. “Just 17 months, how much can he (Tinubu) do?” Okupe asked.
“I am more than convinced that if this gentleman is given understanding, he would do better,” he said in defence of Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC). “Bola Tinubu will fix this nation. Take that to the bank.”
“Talk is cheap,” Okupe added, throwing jabs at Obi and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). “None of the two other candidates can do what Tinubu is doing.”
Nigerians are battling with one of the country’s unprecedented inflation in decades, with energy costs more than quadrupled since ex-Lagos governor Tinubu assumed office as the country’s president in May 2023.
There have been two major protests in 2024 with demonstrators urging the government to reverse its twin policies of petrol subsidy removal and unification of the forex windows but the current administration has insisted that its reforms are yielding some results and there is no going back.