Nollywood actor and politician Kenneth Okonkwo denounced President Bola Tinubu’s speech to Nigerians on Sunday about the countrywide protests against #EndBadGovernance as boring and annoying.
Remember that on Sunday, following widespread rallies against rising commodity prices and economic hardship, President Tinubu spoke to Nigerians.
But Okonkwo, a former spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council in 2023, said that the President should not have given such a speech because he thought it was “bad.”
In addition, he demanded that Tinubu dismiss his media advisors for disclosing his speech the day before it was televised across the country.
“The people are protesting for hunger and hardship, deprivation and degradation. And the president was compelled to speak,” Okonkwo said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday.
He added: “I wish they did not compel him. If I were a media aide, I would have preferred there was no speech at all because bad speech is worse than no speech at all.
“In addition to the speech being empty and very annoying, it was even leaked before the day.”
According to Okonkwo, none of the demonstrators’ requests have been fulfilled by President Tinubu. He denounced the violent acts of a few while highlighting the importance of protest in a democratic society.
He said the President ought to have reconsidered his decision to buy a new presidential jet and streamlined his cabinet.
Since Okonkwo believes that “subsidy itself is a palliative,” he suggested that the government reinstate subsidies on petrol and energy tariffs rather than doing away with them and substituting ineffectual palliatives.
He went on to say that the current administration has lowered Nigerians’ standard of living and should instead focus on increasing productivity by creating a favorable business climate.
Aside from Okonkwo, significant personalities such as Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Femi Falana (SAN), and political organizations like as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) have aso opposed the President’s speech.
