•Dino Melaye (left)
Former Senator Dino Melaye, today criticised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Democracy Day broadcast, describing it as detached from the realities facing Nigerians.
The former lawmaker also called on the president to resign over worsening insecurity and the rise in cases of abductions across the country, reports The PUNCH.
Melaye made the remarks in Abuja during the third posthumous legacy colloquium held in honour of the late founder of DAAR Communications, Raymond Dokpesi.
The event was organised by D-37, a group comprising political associates and allies of the late media entrepreneur and politician.
Speaking on President Tinubu’s June 12 nationwide address, Melaye said the speech failed to reflect the hardships confronting ordinary Nigerians.
He said, “I have a problem with every part of Tinubu’s June 12 broadcast speech because truth has no volume. If you increase it, it’s no longer the truth. If you decrease it, it’s no longer the truth. Everything in that speech did not represent the truth.
“The statistics faulted, intentions not genuine, and the president is speaking what he did not believe in. Every part of that speech is at variant with the practical experience of what Nigerians are going through. It carries no hope.”
Melaye also cited recent kidnappings and killings in Oyo and Kogi states as evidence of the country’s deteriorating security situation.
“On the issue of the abduction of Oyo School, it should not only be restricted to Ogbomosho. In my own state of Kogi, two days ago, students writing the English language for their WAEC examinations were kidnapped. These people came in, killed the vice-principal, a six-year-old child, and a 70-year-old man, and went away with the students.
“This story is the same across almost all the states of the entire country. I think for a government that is sensitive to its people, the president ought to have declared a state of emergency in the security of his country. The Nigerian security architecture is not that terrible.
“This is gross incompetence. The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. On May 29 at Eagle Square, he had the Quran on his left hand and the Constitution of the Republic of Nigeria on the right,” he stated.
According to him, Section 42(b) of the Constitution has clearly emphasised that the security and the welfare of the people shall be the primary prerogative of the government.
He said, “So, any leader of this country who has failed in security, failed in welfare, is a failed president. The president is wearing an oversized shoe. You cannot give what you don’t have. Nigeria is not Lagos. He is overwhelmed. He does not have the intellectual, emotional, or physical capacity and capability to lead this country.
“He cannot be commander-in-chief because this country has never seen it this low. In the last three years alone, three serving generals have been abducted and killed. Abroad, only one pilot went missing, and America deployed everything to locate him.
“So, when generals are being killed, what is our own security? So, I’m not part of those saying the government should pay ransom. I am only saying the government should show capacity. And when you cannot do it, you should resign honourably and leave.”
The chieftain of the African Democratic Congress also blamed the administration for the economic hardship in the country, saying the effects were being felt across all segments of society.
Also speaking, former Nigerian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Nkoyo Toyo, urged Nigerians not to assume that the outcome of the 2027 presidential election was already predetermined.
The ex-member of the House of Representatives also urged prospective voters to start showing interest in who emerges as the next resident commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission in each state.
She said, “Tinubu needs a hearing aid because he doesn’t hear or listen. This is why the opposition, rights activists and people who believe in a different kind of government need to raise their voice. I think the issue of the people who become the next INEC commissioners should be of great concern and interest to us.
“We must leave the assumption that Tinubu has already won the 2027 election. It’s a very dangerous assumption because it normalises us in a way. It would assume that people are already surrendering and saying it will not work because the opposition has been fractured.
“There is also that assumption that the same thing we saw in 2023 will repeat itself in 2027 because nothing has really changed. No, a lot is going on. This is the time for citizens to take it back. The political class is not as powerful as we think. It is time for you to take back that voice.”
In his remarks, former Benue State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Alex Ter Adum, expressed concern over what he described as a shrinking democratic space and declining tolerance for dissenting views.
“The shrinking of the democratic space concerns me regarding the intolerance of dissenting voices. But we must continue to speak out because the democratic space must be open for everybody to participate.
“We are in a democracy, and we have a right to speak out. If High Chief Dokpesi were alive, he would have made his media space available for anyone who wants to speak out because he stood for the truth. That was the type of person he was.
“Even the way lawmakers handled controversial bills like the Electoral Act shouldn’t have been allowed to happen in the manner it did. I am sure you would have heard echoes and vibrations, because whenever Dokpesi stood up to speak, he spoke as a hero and a man possessed,” he noted.
