Hardship: S’East APC blames govs, hails Tinubu’s first year

As President Bola Tinubu’s one-year anniversary in office approaches, the All Progressives Congress South East Organising Secretary, Dozie Ikedife (Jnr.), has expressed his approval of the president’s performance thus far.

In a recent interview with journalists in Nnewi, Anambra State, Ikedife reflected on the president’s actions and their alignment with his inaugural address.

He applauded the timely removal of the fuel subsidy, noting that while the previous administration had initiated the process, President Tinubu’s administration successfully implemented it, according to the Independent.

He stressed that the subsidy removal has yielded significant benefits for the Nigerian people, but he emphasized the need for citizens to hold their state governments accountable for the poor infrastructure in their states.

He opined that citizens have a crucial role to play in demanding better governance and improved living conditions from their state governments.

“Look at the allocations from the Federal Government to the states. The states allocations have doubled since Tinubu came in as President of Nigeria and all that extra money was accrued from the savings of subsidy removal.

“So, what the states receive now are quite higher than what they were receiving before and these allocations from the Feder­al Government are supposed to be felt by the citizens.

“Remember that the states are responsible to their citizens and the LGAs are responsible to people at the grassroots.

“The state has emasculated the Local Government system and decided to do as they pleased with the federal allocations. So, that is what is going on.

“I will say squarely that they should blame the hardship on the state governments. The state governors have refused to cush­ion the effect of subsidy removal by the federal government,” he explained.

On Tinubu’s fight against corruption, he said the President was on course.

According to him, Nigerians should understand that corrup­tion in Nigeria was endemic, adding that corruption had eat­en deep into the fabrics of the system.

“He said that anybody fighting corruption in Nigeria would have to spend a long time to see what the person is doing.

“But, I want to tell you that this federal government under President Bola Tinubu is very serious about fighting corrup­tion and the government is do­ing anything within its powers to fight corruption and see that it is brought down to the barest minimum.

“So, I applaud the govern­ment of Bola Tinubu for what he has done fighting corruption so far.”