• Wednesday, December 18, 2024
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BusinessDay

Tinubu’s house turned into a Mecca of sorts

The burden of reform: Who pays the price in Nigeria?

Kai! Power in Nigeria is sweet. See how everybody was gravitating towards President Bola Ahmed Tinubu these past few days. Everybody wanted to show his/her face. Even those who had not gone to the Mosque before, became emergency Muslims, just to say “I dey here ooo.”

Governors abandoned their duties in their various states to be with the President in Lagos on the bill of their states. The leadership of the National Assembly emptied itself into Lagos.

The visitors said they came to Lagos to pay homage to the President. This is the same President that lives in Abuja, where the National Assembly leaders see him whenever they want. Do not forget that such “official” junketing attracts out-of-station hefty allowances. This is happening at a time when the Federal Government and the Organised Labour are in a “mortal kombat” over minimum wage.

The question observers are asking, is, “why are we like this in this country?” This does not happen in any well-run society. What business has the leadership of a National Assembly travelling outside the capital to another place to visit a president who has gone to celebrate a religious ceremony?

Why must the country stand still because the President is celebrating? It is these same leaders that are saying that payment of N62,000 as minimum wage was unsustainable. They may be correct in their argument, but their action belies their pronouncements. How would Labour be convinced that there is no money to pay workers a living wage when there is so much merriment and sheer wastage around government? Just thinking aloud!

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