Kola Ologbondiyan, immediate past National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday says the federal government must devote its attention to finding urgent solutions to the numerous challenges confronting the nation.
Speaking with TheScrutinyNG on the controversy trailing the old and new national anthem, Ologbondiyan says he expects the government to devote time to addressing critical issues such as minimum wage controversy, hardship caused by fuel subsidy removal, electricity increase, insecurity challenges and others.
“I believe the issue of national anthem has been addressed by Nigerians. What I noticed about this federal government is that they lack capacity for feedback mechanism. I don’t think they are good listeners to what people are saying”.
“Many Nigerians find it very strange that with the myriads of challenges facing the country now, the issue of national anthem is the last thing that should be the concern of the Federal government”.
I can understand the spins and storms that the federal government is trying to throw but what they need to do is to address the germaine issues that affect the lives of Nigerians. The common man is daily complaining of hardship, how do you address that?”.
The PDP chieftain argued that telling a hungry man who doesn’t know where the next meal will come from to sing the national anthem will be an exercise in futility.
“All these things about changing national anthem will not stick because Nigerians are not interested. Apart from young people who are in school that will sing the national anthem at their daily assemblies, who else will bother about singing the new national anthem?”
“The average Nigerian who has no money to go to the market and get food, and you are talking to him to learn the wordings of the new national anthem, will he listen to you? He will tell you ‘What is my business with that?’.
“So, I believe there are pressing issues before the federal government that requires urgent attention. For example, the removal of fuel subsidy by the Tinubu administration brought us to where we are. The increase in electricity tariff added to the pains of fuel subsidy removal”.
” The fact that farmers can’t go to their farms because of insecurity is creating hunger all over the country. What is the federal government doing about this? That is the pertinent question. It is not enough for the sympathisers of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to be telling us that he inherited the problem. Does it mean that we will be in this state forever?”
