After a break on Sunday, the movement to put an end to bad governance is expected to resume its marches and occupations across Nigeria this week. Despite the dialogue proposed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, not a single voice was heard to accept the invitation. On the contrary, reactions to the Head of State’s speech were almost unanimously negative.
In a post on X, Bring Back Our Girls leader Oby Ezekwesili wrote: “Tinubu’s speech was a monumental missed opportunity to appease citizens with solid answers.”
A similar tone was struck by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. For him, Ahmed Bola Tinubu “neglects the pressing economic difficulties that have beset Nigerian families since the beginning of his tenure”. Debo Ologunagba, a spokesman for the PDP, the main opposition party, believes that the Head of State is not proposing anything concrete. He denounced the absence of any immediate decision to reduce fuel prices.
Lawyer Femi Falana, defender of Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, deplored Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s failure to condemn the brutality of the Nigerian security forces.
Wole Soyinka, a close friend of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had harsher words to say. For the Nobel Prize winner for literature, “firing live ammunition at peaceful demonstrators lamenting hunger symbolizes a disturbing regression of the kind that most likely precedes revolutions.”
On the side of the majority, no major voice was heard in support of the president’s speech.