LAGOS -Saturday, 12th June 2021: The National President of the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Senior Staff Association, (FOBTOB), Comrade Jimoh Oyibo, has called on President Mohammed Buhari to concentrate on delivering his electoral promises to Nigerians and leave politicking for now as Nigerians are currently facing hunger and insecurity in every part of the country.
Comrade Jimoh made this statement while speaking in an Exclusive Interview with CEOAFRICA on the occasion of June 12 Democracy Day
“Let the government be responsive, any government that cannot provide security for its citizen, provide job, I tell you, a man that cannot provide for his family is an infidel. So, a government that cannot provide security, that cannot provide job for his teeming unemployed youths, a government that cannot make schools functional, provide social amenities, a government that cannot provide infrastructures, your guess is as good as mine.
They have to solve the problem of hunger in the land and face squarely the challenges in this country. It is important to let them know that the people are hungry, Nigerians are hungry, they need to know that there is hunger in the land.
“This sectional or religious connotation of some of our leaders is somehow, they need to weigh it because it is not helping our system. ‘
“Nigeria is one and it would continue to be one. No section of the country is greater than the other. Even if by census, your population is greater than mine, it does not make you (your ethnic group) greater than my own ethnic group, so everybody should be treated equally as Nigerians. Not because either president or somebody comes from that place and you begin to favour only that side (region) of the country. If you continue this way and the government seems helpless in tackling it, one day, the people would revolt,” he explained.
Comrade Oyibo in his advice to Nigerian youths said since we are yet to really get all what June 12 struggle stood for, one need to protect his or herself to live long and see the actualization of what the June 12 struggle stood for.
“My advice to Nigerian youths ,be peace loving , take their destinies into their hands and always be vigilant as they make provision for self defence for themselves because of the nation’s deplorable security environment.
Commenting on the deplorable security situation in the country, Comrade Oyibo said vigilance is the key word for Nigerians now.
Nobody or government can prosecute anyone for self defence as life is sacred. “What is an offence when you are in your home and somebody raid your home, to exterminate your family and in an attempt to be alive, you defend yourself against the external aggressor, what is treasonable about it? What is treasonable when you cannot access your farm, you can’t feed your children and the youths are taken to so many social vices just to make ends meet, is it that we are going to continue with?” he queried.
Reminiscing on June 12, Comrade Oyibo recalled that June 12, 1993 was adjudged to be one of the freest and fairest in Nigerian electoral history, “a situation that saw Nigerians, every Nigerian from North, South, West or East voted for a man we believe would turn Nigeria around for better, unfortunately that singular choice by the majority of the people was truncated and today we are seeing a different thing in Nigeria politics.”
He said rather than celebrating, this memory called for sober reflection of the day, we would have gotten it right as a nation but was truncated.
If we say we want to celebrate; he queried, “What are we celebrating? Celebrating that our children are out of schools due to incessant strikes, celebrating that our roads are not motorable, celebrating that we cannot even boast of having light 24 hours? You cannot even have it for 2 hours in a day. So, what exactly are we celebrating? We saw a nation that we gradually go into indebtedness, we borrow, borrow and borrow and we don’t know what we are borrowing this money for. You can’t see any meaningful development as a nation. So, if you ask me, I think, internally am sad, that we are where we are now.
“If truly, we have this blood of Nigeria flowing in us, many of us would be bleeding internally because this is not the country that you and I envisaged. This is not the country that our founding fathers thought off.
Honestly, if you asked me, people should just as usual sit down at home or look for something better to do for their lives, but if you asked me, to me, there is nothing t
