You’re Turning Nigerians Into Beggars With Your Palliatives, Afe Babalola Tells Tinubu
Babalola made the point at his university in Ado-Ekiti, where he also expressed support for the agitation of The Patriots for a new Constitution.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria Afe Babalola has expressed dissatisfaction over how President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration is turning hard-working Nigerians into beggars by creating and sustaining the environment for his government to keep on giving them handouts in form of palliatives, which keep them in poverty and compel them to depend on the President for their survival.
Babalola made the point at his university in Ado-Ekiti, where he also expressed support for the agitation of The Patriots for a new Constitution.
He stated this while addressing the Prestige Sisters League who visited the campus to thank him, an occasion he used to air his views on the recent hunger protest, stressing that everyone knows there is hunger in the country.
“Those who are complaining about hunger are doing so sincerely. They are hungry. A hungry man can go to any length to show his anger. We do not need anybody to tell us about hunger in the country. The protest was genuine and the government should listen to them,” Babalola said.
“The duty of the government is the welfare of the people. The problem we have now is that people cannot move freely. They have abandoned the farms.
“People are being killed on their farms and everybody wants to stay where they are safe. It is because the government has failed in this regard that we have hunger.
“It is wrong for the government to be sharing garri, beans and rice as palliatives. They are turning the people into beggars. The government that is giving the people rice and beans is leading us to poverty.
“The government is discouraging people from working, whereas, the government must provide the people enabling environment for people to work and feed themselves.”
Quest for a new Constitution
Babalola also spoke on the demand for a new Constitution by The Patriots, arguing that Nigeria does not have to go through any constitutional conference because the National Assembly can simply reenact the 1963 Constitution.
“I read the publication of the Patriots visiting President Tinubu and I am in full agreement with them. We need a new Constitution. But I do not agree that we should go through any constitutional conference.
“Recently, you are aware that President Bola Tinubu asked us to go back to the old National Anthem; there was no conference for it before it was passed by the National Assembly and assented by the President.
“The 1963 Constitution was the one made by all of us. By the same token, the parliament should bring back the 1963 and reenact it.”
