Right Of Reply: Questions The Presidency Must Answer

We have noted, with some amusement, the rebuttal published by Sunday Dare, one of the President’s many media aides, in response to the ADC’s birthday message to the President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria’s Armed Forces. But beyond the tone of that response, there is something more concerning: how easily the Presidency avoids the real, everyday reality Nigerians are living through.

Inflation is not an abstract concept. It is the mother who can no longer afford food the way she did a year ago. It is the young worker whose salary has stayed the same while transport fares have doubled under this government. It is the small business owner watching costs rise faster than their sales.

These are not theories. They are the direct consequences of decisions taken under the Bola Tinubu-led APC administration, particularly the abrupt removal of fuel subsidy without any immediate or credible cushioning for over 200 million Nigerians. Today, fuel prices have risen by nearly 500 percent and everything else has followed. And so Nigerians are left with a few simple questions that deserve direct answers, not a carefully worded article at a time like this.

On the price of fuel, is the Tinubu government telling Nigerians that there is nothing they can do to bring down the price of fuel? Since the war on Iran started, governments all over the world have taken different emergency measures to keep the price of fuel down. But all we hear from the Tinubu government is that Nigerians should continue to endure.

But there are measures the government can take, which it has either failed to consider or chosen to ignore. To start with, and this is what the ADC would do, suspend the five percent fuel tax and remove import and regulatory charges that drive up the pump price of petrol. This would immediately lower fuel costs, and with it, transport and food prices.

On security, the conversation is even more painful, because it is about life. Under this presidency, Nigeria now ranks 4th on the Global Terrorism Index. But beyond rankings are real people, families who have lost loved ones, communities that no longer sleep with both eyes closed. Daughters raped in front of their fathers and wives raped in front of their children. And in the short time between our birthday message and this rebuttal, at least 12 Nigerians were killed in Plateau State. Twelve people. Twelve families. In just a few hours. This is why Nigerians expect urgency, not explanations.

If defence spending has increased, as the government often points out, then Nigerians are right to ask why they still feel unsafe in their homes, on their roads, and in their farms. And sometimes, it even feels like this government’s policies are harsher on Nigerians than the government is on terrorists and bandits, who, disturbingly, have at times been referred to as “sons” and “brothers.” If the government is truly firm in its resolve, Nigerians deserve to see that firmness reflected first in the protection of innocent lives.

What Nigerians expect is accountability. What we receive instead are lectures. Nigerians are often infantilised, told we complain only because we do not understand what the government is doing. They speak as if governance is a mystery. We are told that hardship is necessary. That this is reform. But Nigerians really want to know: when will this “necessary pain” begin to produce relief that people can actually feel? Because right now, what people feel is pain. What they see is struggle. And what we all hear from the government often does not match these daily realities.

Perhaps the most consistent success of this administration has been in trying to convince Nigerians that things are improving, even when their lived reality suggests otherwise. Citizens are asked, again and again, to believe that what they are experiencing is progress. The cup is half full, they say.
But Nigerians are not confused. They know when life is getting harder. They know when they feel less safe. They know when their money no longer goes as far. And no amount of explanation can replace that lived truth. The truth is that, for most Nigerians, the cup has gone completely empty since President Tinubu came to power.

It is important to note that despite the number of words, and the audacity to take out a back page column, the Presidency did not deny the hardship. It did not deny the insecurity. It did not deny the rising cost of living. The only thing it denies is responsibility, hoping that if it repeats its “cup is half full” mantra long enough, Nigerians will begin to deny their own reality and believe that things are getting better. No, they are not. They are getting worse.

A government that continues to blame everyone else but itself, that continues to make promises instead of showing results, cannot be trusted. Nigerians do not need more explanations. We need a government that understands what people are going through and acts to make life easier, not harder.

-Abdullahi is the National Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).