…Insists Buhari Wouldn’t Have Emerged President Without Tinubu’s Support
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 who is the Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Public Communication and Orientation 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.
In the same vein, the Special Adviser to the President on Public Communications and Orientation hailed Tinubu’s role in the emergence of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Before dislodging the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led Federal Government in 2015, Buhari ran unsuccessfully for presidency in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections.
It finally took talks and a political merger between Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN) and some other parties to birth the All Progressives Congress (APC) which later won the 2015 presidential election.
“If you look at the role Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu played in the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari and I can say clearly that without Tinubu’s role in forming the party, making the platform to be there, President Buhari would not have emerged,” he said.
When asked if he sold the idea of fielding Buhari as the then-APC presidential candidate, the former minister replied in the affirmative.
“It couldn’t have been only me, it was a team. The electoral victories we won in 2015 and the one in 2019 had the writing of President Tinubu. We are a party and beyond me, several other people were also invited,” he stated.
During the show, he also weighed in on Buhari’s performance in whose government he served as Minister of Sports and Youth Development.
He however refused to say whether Buhari failed in his eight-year tenure. The former minister explained that government is a continuum.
“Buhari came, did his bit and moved on. President Obasanjo did his bit and moved on, Yar’adua came, did his bit and moved on. Jonathan came, did his bit and moved on.
“President Bola Tinubu is there with the requisite experience, courage to take tough decisions that other presidents did not take,” he added.