The immediate ex-National vice Chairman, Northwest, of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Salihu Lukman has faulted the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), for describing president Bola Tinubu’s National broadcast as ‘silver bullet that Nigerians expected’.
Recall that Tinubu had on Monday in his speech said he is aware of the hardship Nigerians are facing due to the various policy decisions of his administration.
In its reaction, the NLC said the speech appears to be out of touch with reality and failed to address the hardship and suffering that most Nigerians are going through.
However, Lukman in a statement titled: silver bullet politics and challenges of democracy, said NLC’s statement completely ignores all the proposals contained in Tinubu’s broadcast.
The APC chieftain opined that
It is almost as if the NLC response was written even before the broadcast and therefore completely blind of all the proposals.
“Having served the NLC, and conversant with the tradition of critically and dispassionately reviewing government’s policy proposals, it was disappointing that the NLC reduced its responses to generalised commentary without reference to the specific issues contained in President Tinubu’s national broadcast.
“As Nigerians, we must appeal to NLC leadership to rise above the narrow sentiment of playing to the gallery based on some deceptively flimsy argument of a so-called silver bullet, if you like silver bullet politics, which is simply egocentric that inconsistent with the interest of Nigerians, including that of the working class.
“While acknowledging that there would be gaps in the proposals by government and there would be challenges in terms of implementation especially when it comes to guaranteeing that broader interests of Nigerians are accommodated, swiftly dismissing them in the manner done by NLC is unacceptable and will not augur well for our democracy.
“The mere fact that President Asiwaju Tinubu finds it compelling to address the nation given the difficulties Nigerians are facing since the withdrawal of fuel subsidy is commendable. If anything, this confirms that President Asiwaju Tinubu is not in denial and aspire to ensure that his government is responsive.
“As argued in the past, part of the challenges of finding solutions to Nigeria’s problems, or silver bullet politics as NLC would want us to consider, is the issue of accommodating the diverse interests of Nigerians in designing and implementing policies of government.
“We must admit that the decision to address the nation represent remarkable progress in the management of contentious public policy in the country.
Lukman recommended that
government should engage organisations of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to set conditions and framework to access the N125 billion being set aside to energise the sector.
He also appealed all organised groups in the country to demonstrate corresponding commitment to also share the burden of resolving Nigeria’s challenges.