Daniel Bwala, a lawyer and member of the People’s Democratic Party, has said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration’s 100 days in office have been uneventful, and that he should focus on building Nigeria, rather than going on diplomatic trips for “photo ops.”
In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, Bwala spoke on the recent deals announced by the presidency, detailing that President Tinubu had secured several investments from international bodies for the country. He said, “It would have been a good news if, for example, it is true. Unfortunately, it is not. It is said that we campaign in poetry, but we govern in prose, but it appears that they are still governing in poetry.”
Bwala went on to describe the 100 days of Tinubu’s administration as “uneventful.” Citing a part of the National Pledge, he said that Nigerians must be “honest with ourselves and honest to our leaders, and that is patriotic action so that our leaders will learn from our opinions on the way they are governing us.”
The lawyer opined that the things that the governments had termed as achievements “can be seen by all as just over exaggeration of their perception of what they call their achievements because in the last 100 days, if you ask a Nigerian, they will tell you that nothing has significantly changed in our lives,” as he said that the education, labour, and healthcare sectors were still going through challenges that had not been duly addressed.
Speaking on the recent business trips that Tinubu took to India and Dubai, Bwala claimed that since the government had nothing to show as a result of what they are doing domestically, decided to go on foreign diplomatic trips to curry the favour and accolades of the international space.
He described the President’s trip to India for the G20 summit as a global picnic, saying that not much was achieved at the summit due to the absence of both Russia and China.
He also said that the meetings that President Tinubu, who went along with Nigerian businessmen, held with the various businessmen and investors in India did not result in definite conclusions. He said that those who made statements that there were definite investments were “exaggerating and mentioning monies that could not be verified either by the investors themselves, either through a joint statement, through their website, through their personal social media handle.”
“Everything they said they secured as investment plans or promises could only be established by themselves. There is no one word from any investor in India that they actually committed to such,” he said.
Bwala then said, “Mark what I’m saying, in the next one year, you will see nothing from Dubai as per investment. You will see nothing from India as per investment because they are just photo ops and statements. There are no specificities, there are no deliverables, and there are no timelines.”
The PDP member then reiterated, “You can only develop and make your country attractive when you focus on your domestic policies on national security interest and national interest of your country. Now, it is contained in your manifesto, you have abandoned that and you’re on a foreign trip to use photo ops as evidence of either legitimacy or evidence of prosperity. That cannot work.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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