‘One Of Tinubu’s Biggest Mistakes’ – Lukman Reveals

Former chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has said President Bola Tinubu’s declaration on fuel subsidy without putting up any plan, was one of his biggest mistakes.

Naijaonpoint reports that the former National Vice Chairman (North West) made this known in an interview on Arise TV on Monday.

Lukman stated that despite the economic situation in the country, the APC members cannot access Tinubu or influence decisions on what needs to be done in the country.

The former APC chieftain noted that if the ruling party does not change its leadership, the masses would be forced to queue behind another leader during the 2027 election.

He said, “One of the biggest mistakes that President Asiwaju made was making that declaration on his inauguration day, declaring petroleum subsidy is gone without even sitting down to put up a plan and today, no plan to respond to that challenge.

“And that is why the living condition in the country is crashing and the government is just ground standing. All of us in the party have become onlookers. We are not able to even access president Asiwaju and influence decisions in terms of what needs to be done.

“From the way things are going, my prediction, which is why I had to act the way I acted is that by the end of this year, if we don’t take time, the campaign for 2027 will start and people will be forced to just queue behind any leader and out of anger, out of frustration, with the reality before us, we’ll end up even electing a worse successor to President Asiwaju and all the challenges of the country will even get worse.”

Lukman also criticised the government’s major spending on infrastructure projects like the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, while neglecting urgent needs in education and health.

He highlighted that the allocation for education is insufficient to address such a critical issue.

He said, “Spending 15 trillion naira on Lagos-Calabar coastal highway. Imagine if a fraction of that amount is invested in education and in terms of education, we talk about 10 million out of school children in the north.

“You can not solve that problem by business as usual, allocating a pittance in education and expect classrooms to work, teachers to be recruited, teaching material to be procured with the pittance that is going on now. So you need extra budgetary activities to be able to respond to that and mop up the out of school children out of street.

“In terms of mopping up, the advantage of it is that it will also reduce the vulnerability of the nation in terms of insecurity. Imagine a fraction of 15 trillion naira invested in our armed forces by way of procurement of military hardware, training and talking about even responding to security challenges, we’ve been deviating as a nation for God knows how long about state police or not.”