President Muhammadu Buhari’s staunched supporter and former Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Barr Solomon Selcap Dalung has unapologetically labelled the All Progressives Congress, APC eight years of leadership in Nigeria as “undebatable a monumental failure”. Dalung stated this on Thursday, 30 May 2024, when he featured as the Guest on 20th Pointblank News Blog Interactive Session to assess the Cheers and Tears of the Renewed Hope of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and The Time Is Now Mantra of Governor Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang of Plateau State
Reacting to the APC Press release that said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s one year in office is highly successful and setting Nigeria on the path of recovery, Barr Dalung said “the APC has been a monumental failure in the past 8 years; that is not debatable. So if they (APC) have issued a statement to celebrate failure at the national level, I will not blame them because they are so fortunate that despite all the catastrophy they threw the country into, Nigerians have not come out to hold them accountable”.
The bold and blunt 2015 APC Gubernatorial aspirant on the Plateau continued that “So if they (APC) are celebrating, the celebration is not unconnected with the fact that they have looted Nigeria dried in the past 8 years especially in the past one year under President Tinubu and remain unchallenged. The level of impunity is what has excited them to issue a statement of congratulations and commendation of a government that in the last one year produced over 70 millions poor Nigerians”
The former University Law Lecturer who has a penchant for speaking truth to power added that “So APC is a group of shameless people who even in their own dictionary, shame doesnot exist and so I am not surprised about their statement but I don’t think they can take it too long because Nigerians are becoming too aware and maybe asking for account”.
Taking a critical look at Tinubu’s one year, Dalung recounted with sadness that “In less than 7 months, the Ministry of “Inhumanitarian Affairs and Poverty Creation” (referring to Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Mangement), one of the ministries that they have decided to suspend it, 70 billions was stolen in four days, 40 billion was transferred between one account and the other, yet this is the government that is issuing statement celebrating. I think we should be focused on holding them to account and not be distracted”
In a damning assessment berating Tinubu’s first anniversary, social critic fearlessly bared his mind saying “the government in the past one year has not been able to terms with whatever agenda it has for itself while campaigning, so basically what we have recorded in the past one year has been government rigamarolling around different economic policies and food security”.
“None of the policies has actually paid off except that it has produced more poor people and increased the level of hardship and suffering among Nigerians. The last one year has nothing impactful to hold onto as the commitment of the government to its social contract with Nigerians. This sincerely is my candid opinion”
He wondered why Nigerians had any expectations on President Tinubu “The expectation of Nigerians on Tinubu’s government is misplaced because Tinubu did not make any clear commitment while campaigning. This was a person who refused to appear at any of the Presidential debates and each time he had the opportunity, he told Nigerians that it was his time (emi lokon), he was entitled to it. So that sense of entitlement was what led Tinubu to say that power is not given but that you grab power and run away with it so I don’t know what expectations Nigerians were making in the circumstance from someone who demonstrated beyond any iota of doubt that he has nothing to offer and he ws not going to commit himself to any agenda”
He tagged the renewed hope agenda of President Tinubu empty. “The renewed hope agenda was hurriedly packaged during the inagural sppech of the President and is a very hollow political program that contains nothing. What is the content of the renewed hope agenda for education, security, economy, health, agriculture? There is nothing in it. The program memo is renewed hopeless agenda so I am surprised that Nigerians have some expectations from that situation”.
The vocal former Minister condemned the speed with which the national anthem was amended while serious ntional challenges are left unattended to. “The speed with which the national assembly passed the National Anthem act and it was signed into law, is a confirmation that the government is confused, clueless and has no idea and grossly incompetent because if they didn’t address Nigeria’s challenges with the speed they amended the National Anthem, it is clear that the President has a hidden agenda for trying vulcanize this country and create anarchy”.
“Tinubu cannot revert the country to an old National anthem without reverting the country to the infrastructure of 1963 republic, so we must revert back to the parliamentary system of government, and we expect the President to do this with the same speed with which the National anthem was reverted but I don’t see this happening”.
“This is just a group of people who are confused, they do not have a direction and so they try to distract attention by falling back on one thing or the other. The national anthem isn’t the priority of Nigerians now. What the President should have concentrated on is to put food on the table of Nigerians, create jobs and address the issue of insecurity and not the issue of the National anthem so the national anthem is a misplacement of priority of a clueless government”.
The interview however took a drama turn though not unexpected considering the antecedents of boldness of Dalung. When asked wether he failed too haven been part of the 8 years APC government as a minister, Dalung couldn’t spare his host. He said “APC administration has been adjuged generally by Nigerians as a failure. It will be hypocritical for anybody to isolate members of the government and begin to ask them wether they succeeded as individuals or they failed. This type of question is the way Nigerians try to glorify eveil because the performance of a government is not that of individuals, it is the overall performance of the government and it is based on the commitment of the government to the promises made during campaign
“So if you take the four point agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari, which of them did they succeed? So if President failed, why would you isolate me as an individual and ask that question? I think you are a promoter of hypocrisy and that is where I will place you
