By Kayode Emola
Earlier this week, I watched a video where President Tinubu was addressing a conference and promising an uninterrupted power supply by 2027. In his remarks, the President stated that he will deliver an uninterrupted power supply to Nigerians before the 2027 general elections by any means possible. If he fails to do this, he claims he should not be voted back in those elections.
My question is how many of President Tinubu’s promises in the past has he kept? Tinubu and his predecessor Buhari are the ones who promised to make $1 equal to ₦1 within four years of the former’s presidency in 2015. Today, $1 is over ₦1,500 and nowhere near coming down soon.
President Tinubu, during his campaign in 2023, stated that he would hire fifty thousand Nigerians into the Army to tackle insecurity. As of today, I don’t even think the Nigerian army has hired up to ten thousand people a few months into Tinubu’s second year in office.
We must not forget that our Yoruba farms and village settlements are being surrounded by terrorists hibernating in our forests waiting to unleash the worst mayhem mankind has ever witnessed on the Yoruba people. Yet we sit on our hands waiting for the day the government will come to our rescue.
Except President Tinubu is promising to give free fuel to every Nigerians to power their generators at home, he should not make promises he can not keep. There is no way the president can provide uninterrupted power supply to every nook and crannies in Nigeria without critical infrastructure.
The president, in his one-line political sloganeering of uninterrupted power supply, should not be his priority. Rather, he should focus on a sincere roadmap to delivering an uninterrupted power supply. This roadmap will serve his credibility very well rather than trying to win a popularity contest.
Without any concrete evidence of activities going on to improve the electrical installations and distribution networks, there should be no bold promise of uninterrupted power supply. As we speak, some communities in Southern Ondo Senatorial District have not seen electricity for over a decade. Most of these communities rely on generators, solar panels, and other heat sources to generate electricity.
The president’s bold promise of providing uninterrupted electricity in 2027 is offensive to people who know this is another election gimmick. The fact of the matter is that the president is only concerned about his political future in 2027.
He may direct the electricity board to maintain a façade during the election period by providing electricity in some areas, making the people think that he is fulfilling his promise. When it is just to win the votes of the people who will be neglected once he secures a second term.
As Yoruba, this is clear evidence that President Tinubu is not concerned about the plight of an average Yoruba person who bears the brunt of his harsh policies. Tinubu is more concerned about his own political future and would do anything necessary to keep him power.
Many of our elderly people may not survive this current hardship going on in Yorubaland. Therefore, it is high time we came together to unanimously demand our own Yoruba nation. It is our duty to do this for the coming generations as we may live or die to regret the loss of our ancestral home to strangers. It is time to be bold and to take a stand, and as for me and my household, we will stand with the Yoruba nation.
