By Rt.Hon Kehinde Ayoola Former Speaker, Oyo State House Of Assembly. The Minister of Communications, Alhaji Adebayo Shittu missed...
By Rt.Hon Kehinde Ayoola
Former Speaker, Oyo State House Of Assembly.
The Minister of Communications, Alhaji Adebayo Shittu missed a golden opportunity last weekend at his much publicised radio tiff with Omoyele Sowore, Presidential aspirant and publisher of Sahara Reporters.
The golden opportunity was the chance offered to engage Nigerian youths through a man that is not only at an age that serves as a bridge between the youths and the elderly but one who has an immense capacity, through his media empire and civil society advocacy engagements to energize this massive voting population.
The Minister should have saved his abuses, expletives for his drivers, gateman or the hordes of people who flock his home for sundry favours and used that opportunity to do two things:
• Tell the world what Buhari has done in the last three years which the Sowore “army” cannot see.
• Show one more reason why Oyo State should elect him as governor.
Shittu should have told the listening audience, in elaborate terms, about his own entry into politics at age 26 in 1978 in the UPN days and not say a 47-year old Sowore is too young to run and so should try and go for councillorship.
He should have told the people that Sowore is even late in coming; that he was at a meeting of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s newly formed UPN where Awo took note of his intelligent contributions and asked the UPN leaders in Shaki to send Shittu to the House of Assembly. (Shittu was a budding lawyer then and he was a bachelor. His bachelorhood was even held up as an obstacle but the Leader told them to “get him a wife”! )
It is therefore wrong and as a lawyer I think Shittu should know he was abridging the fundamental democratic rights of Sowore by asking him to go for councillorship.
To the credit of Sowore, he never went down to the low level the Minister plunged into by exchanging words with him. He was polite but firm in hammering the point that the Buhari administration, which Shittu is serving, has failed to deliver on the huge hope people invested in voting them into office.
This is as clear as daylight.
Mr Adebayo Shittu’s vituperations was a clear indication of the disconnect between our leaders and the people.
They are in a “bamu bamu l’a yo” mode.
A young wife who started procreation in 2015 and had a baby then bought ‘pampers’ at N130 each but today, when she has her second child is buying it at around N300! Of cos petrol was N97 in 2015 but N145 per litre today. In addition, and according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, about 8 million jobs have been lost in the last 3 years. The people losing jobs are young people mostly. And so the youths, women (and by extension, children) have real reasons to be annoyed at this government.
What of education? There seems to be a directive now from the APC government that higher institutions should start charging fees and so we now hear of institutions like UI convening a Parents/Teachers' Association, PTA, meeting to discuss the impending hike. (In Ondo, another APC state, the Adekunle Ajasin University has jerked up fees from N25,000 to N180,000!)
These are real and genuine reasons for public angst which guys like Sowore are articulating.
This was lost on the minister.
The Nigerian public, both young and old, must engage this government squarely. There is a list of 81 promises that Buhari made in 2015 flying round Social Media right now. The President must be taken up on them as he waddles his way through campaign podiums.
Another issue is the physical fitness of Mr President for the job. Here is a man that left for medical checks as soon as he declared his intention to run for second term. This is an issue that should rank high and which Minister Shittu should have used his opportunity to explain to Nigerians.
It was indeed a very consequential missed opportunity!
LAST LINE: So, my Londoner friends, Buhari is in town. Hope Theresa May closed the roads last night? And hope you are enjoying your own Buhari holiday today?
Anyway, a maa wa alright at last!
Omi Tuntun, Igba Otun!
--- Rt.Hon Kehinde Ayoola
The Minister of Communications, Alhaji Adebayo Shittu missed a golden opportunity last weekend at his much publicised radio tiff with Omoyele Sowore, Presidential aspirant and publisher of Sahara Reporters.
The golden opportunity was the chance offered to engage Nigerian youths through a man that is not only at an age that serves as a bridge between the youths and the elderly but one who has an immense capacity, through his media empire and civil society advocacy engagements to energize this massive voting population.
The Minister should have saved his abuses, expletives for his drivers, gateman or the hordes of people who flock his home for sundry favours and used that opportunity to do two things:
• Tell the world what Buhari has done in the last three years which the Sowore “army” cannot see.
• Show one more reason why Oyo State should elect him as governor.
Shittu should have told the listening audience, in elaborate terms, about his own entry into politics at age 26 in 1978 in the UPN days and not say a 47-year old Sowore is too young to run and so should try and go for councillorship.
He should have told the people that Sowore is even late in coming; that he was at a meeting of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s newly formed UPN where Awo took note of his intelligent contributions and asked the UPN leaders in Shaki to send Shittu to the House of Assembly. (Shittu was a budding lawyer then and he was a bachelor. His bachelorhood was even held up as an obstacle but the Leader told them to “get him a wife”! )
It is therefore wrong and as a lawyer I think Shittu should know he was abridging the fundamental democratic rights of Sowore by asking him to go for councillorship.
To the credit of Sowore, he never went down to the low level the Minister plunged into by exchanging words with him. He was polite but firm in hammering the point that the Buhari administration, which Shittu is serving, has failed to deliver on the huge hope people invested in voting them into office.
This is as clear as daylight.
Mr Adebayo Shittu’s vituperations was a clear indication of the disconnect between our leaders and the people.
They are in a “bamu bamu l’a yo” mode.
A young wife who started procreation in 2015 and had a baby then bought ‘pampers’ at N130 each but today, when she has her second child is buying it at around N300! Of cos petrol was N97 in 2015 but N145 per litre today. In addition, and according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, about 8 million jobs have been lost in the last 3 years. The people losing jobs are young people mostly. And so the youths, women (and by extension, children) have real reasons to be annoyed at this government.
What of education? There seems to be a directive now from the APC government that higher institutions should start charging fees and so we now hear of institutions like UI convening a Parents/Teachers' Association, PTA, meeting to discuss the impending hike. (In Ondo, another APC state, the Adekunle Ajasin University has jerked up fees from N25,000 to N180,000!)
These are real and genuine reasons for public angst which guys like Sowore are articulating.
This was lost on the minister.
The Nigerian public, both young and old, must engage this government squarely. There is a list of 81 promises that Buhari made in 2015 flying round Social Media right now. The President must be taken up on them as he waddles his way through campaign podiums.
Another issue is the physical fitness of Mr President for the job. Here is a man that left for medical checks as soon as he declared his intention to run for second term. This is an issue that should rank high and which Minister Shittu should have used his opportunity to explain to Nigerians.
It was indeed a very consequential missed opportunity!
LAST LINE: So, my Londoner friends, Buhari is in town. Hope Theresa May closed the roads last night? And hope you are enjoying your own Buhari holiday today?
Anyway, a maa wa alright at last!
Omi Tuntun, Igba Otun!
--- Rt.Hon Kehinde Ayoola
Former Speaker, Oyo State House Of Assembly.
COMMENTS