Yemi Obafemi
A legal practitioner and a former chieftain of the Labour Party (LP) Kenneth Okonkwo “Kenneth Okonkwo, has blamed desperation and hunger for recent stampedes in Nigeria, contradicting President Bola Tinubu’s attribution to poor organisation and indiscipline.
President Bola Tinubu recently gave himself a thumbs up on his government’s performance, despite the tragic stampedes that occurred just days earlier. In a media chat, he stood by his administration’s policies, including the removal of fuel subsidies, which he believes are crucial to getting Nigeria back on track
Speaking on Channel TV, Okonkwo said the president cannot rate himself.
“The worst statement the president made during his first Presidential Media Chat is scoring himself ‘excellent’,” the legal practitioner said, claiming Tinubu has done the “worst job by any president since independence.
“This president shifted all the responsibility to the organizers, people who wanted to help people who are hungry. Let me tell you: this stampede happened in the east. It happened in the west. It happened in the north. That means it’s now a general thing that Nigerians from all sectors are hungry and things are hard,” Okonkwo said on Tuesday’s edition of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
“They did not die in stampedes because they were poor. Poverty exists in every country. They died in a stampede because they were desperately hungry. In other words, they know that if they don’t have that food, they don’t even have anything to fall back in their house, and that is why they had to struggle for N5,000 and grains of rice. The worth of life in Tinubu’s government is now about N5,000 and about [some] grains of rice.”
