Nigeria’s former Ambassador to The Philippines, Dr Yemi Farounbi, says the President Bola Tinubu of today is not the same he knew in the days of their activism as members of the pro-democracy group, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).
Farounbi expressed concerns over the frequency of policy changes of the Tinubu administration that have made it impossible for businesses and common Nigerians to plan economically.
The former ambassador, who turned 80 on October 1, 2024, said Tinubu is ideologically somersaulting by not staying true to the ideals he stood for before he was sworn in as Nigeria’s President on May 29, 2023.
Farounbi was a guest on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television on Friday.
He said economic instability would persist so long as the President doesn’t restructure the country properly.
The ex-ambassador said, “If I have that opportunity, I am going to ask him (Tinubu) to look back at what he was. I am going to ask him to look at the letter he wrote to (former President Goodluck) Jonathan in 2012. I am going to ask him to look at the cases he took to the Supreme Court on local governments.
“I am going to ask him why is he ideologically somersaulting. Why is he not appearing as the Tinubu that we knew, why is not the Tinubu that was committed to the restructuring of this country, a Tinubu that was interested in a sovereign national conference, a Tinubu that was committed to true federalism?
“I’m going to ask him what had happened. Can he be true to himself? Let him be himself as he was in the past and I think that a lot of these problems will not be there.
“Of course, I am going to tell him that he promised us a government of national competence and ask him that in the name of all that is good, does he think that he has a government of national competence? Does he think that the people that he has assembled are the best in this country? Does he think that he has the competence to deal with all that they have been asked to deal with?
“I will ask him to look even at his media; have they been projecting him rightly? What about the contradictions in what he has been saying?
“I will ask him what is happening that there are so frequent policy changes. That doesn’t seem like the Tinubu that I know. It has become even more difficult for anybody to even plan because you are not even sure of when he is going to somersault.
“I will ask him to change his team, to look for the best, those who will help him translate whatever he is doing for the greater good of Nigerians.
“People have been praising him for identifying the best of brains. I will ask him to go into that mold and identify the better brains that are scattered all over Nigeria and help us restructure the economy, help us restructure the country to ensure that his government takes greater care of the common man.
“The him (Tinubu) that I know will confront problems and find solutions to them. It is not him that will go into China and say what can we do? That is not the Tinubu that I know. Can he please come back to his original mold? Can he bring better people and look at his policy on subsidy?”
Furthermore, Farounbi lamented the vulgar monetisation of the political system as well as the departure of ideological politics to the politics of convenience since 1999.
“It wasn’t an ideological replacement; it was a vote-gathering mechanism,” he said, adding that the country has not been able to put his best hands forward because of the “money politics” and this has interrupted the dreams of many of Nigeria’s founding fathers and patriotic citizens.
“We must demonetise the political system here in Nigeria. We must look at our political recruitment system from councilors to the top in terms of what they are bringing to the table in terms of intellect and competence,” he said, emphasising that those who help the President to win the 2023 election have not been able to help him to run it well.
Farounbi said the idea of a progressive is to be able to provide for the welfare of the people, to be able to provide food and jobs for the people.
He said Nigeria needs a mental rebirth for states to become effective federating units. He lamented that the relationship between the Federal Government and states has become that of a headmaster and a student. “We must strengthen our federating units, they are not just Lilliputs in the hands of giants,” he said.
