Last week Nigerian-American professor and newspaper columnist Farooq Kperogi disclosed that there were choices his father made that earned him “unalloyed filial respect, loyalty, and love in spite of our lack.”
In his article titled: Tinubu: Overfed father of starving children, Kperogi further stated that his father “never ever ate outside for any reason. Even when he was invited to preside over naming or wedding ceremonies, as Malams of his stature often were, he didn’t eat the food he was offered at the venues of the ceremonies. He would always bring it home to us.
“When his colleagues would ask him why he didn’t eat outside, he would tell them that he couldn’t bear to luxuriate in outside culinary treats when the children for whom he lived stayed hungry at home or ate inferior food…”
Speaking on Friday when he featured on Inside Sources, a programme anchored by Laolu Akande on Channels Television, one time governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, criticized President Bola Tinubu’s decision to purchase a new presidential jet amid Nigeria’s deepening economic crisis.
He described the purchase as a failure of leadership, particularly at a time when Nigerians were enduring some of the harshest economic conditions since the country’s independence.
“There is no glamour in saying your people are going through hard times; it is a failure of your leadership. If I am the head of a family, I want my family to have everything. I don’t want life to be difficult for them,” Duke said.
“If life is difficult, then I feel I have failed to provide for them or do the things I ought to have done. I would ask him (Tinubu) to see the Nigerian nation as his family. What is good for his family is good for the nation.
“Buying a new aircraft or yacht or living large is a failure. You can’t have kids who are hungry and you are living lavishly, going to parties and wearing the biggest agbada.”
Speaking on the security challenges facing the country, Duke asked Tinubu to hold heads of security agencies responsible.
He said there should be consequences for poor performance of duties by security officers.
“Hold the security agencies responsible for a failure of security. There should be consequences. You cannot sit down and say you are a DPO, commissioner of police or you are GOC and crime is being committed in your domain. Hold them responsible,” Duke said.
He also advised the president to “completely decentralise” the judiciary.
“It may require us having maybe three to four times or even 10 times more judges that we have but ensure that whoever is a judge there are consequences for it,” Duke said.
The former governor asked Tinubu to address the economic challenges in the country by finding local solutions.
“The IMF or the World Bank would not give you those textbook solutions. It has to be an indigenous solution to our problems,” he said.
Duke was governor from 1999 to 2007, during the same period Tinubu governed Lagos.
