The rage in the last couple of days has been most daunting. It was presented as a verdict against bad governance; and the protesters didn’t specify any particular level of governance: state, local government and/or Federal Government.

The governors of the various states were behaving as if they were helping the Federal Government on a matter that sat squarely on the shoulders of all the subnationals. Bad governance at state and local government levels have been most appalling, and in some cases, inimical to the citizens of the states.

They made it look as if the problem was domiciled within the perimeter walls of the Aso Villa. But the level of heist and financial profligacy and malfeasance at the state and local government levels have been as destructive as the failure that dominates leadership at the other two levels.

In the last one year, state governments have received higher allocations and support from the Federal Government more than ever before.

Despite and in spite of the increase in their monthly allocations, there is no corresponding improvement in terms of services and performance at the state levels.

So, the protesters ought to demand accountability from those levels of governance too; especially because of improved allocations. Trying to play the ostrich was a deliberate act of sanctimonious distortion of the reality on ground.

My position has remained the same; protests don’t yield ground for improved economy, they rather kill the economy further. The violence that attended the protest of 1st August till now, was avoidable if the entire protest had not taken place.

The government at the federal level is quite aware of the challenges and the issues, but proffering solutions would not yield the expected sudden results that the masses actually want to see.

Government policies take some time to yield result. There are short, medium and long term solutions to economic challenges, hence it will be near impossible to see certain outcomes within a short period of time.

This is why it is imperative for the citizenry to show more understanding and allow the government to continue on its guided path to seeing the positive outcomes of its policies for the wellbeing of the citizenry.

What we saw on 1st August till date are a combination of thuggery violence, regime change, and act of vandalisation of Public infrastructure to make the state ungovernable for President Tinubu.

Fact is, we have a listening president who loves to constructively engage and dialogue to resolving existential threats in the polity. But the impatience exhibited by the protesters tended to suggest that they were being orchestrated by those who are fighting “proxy war” with Mr. President.

Rather than listen to the voice of reason, they were more interested in chaos. In a way, the protests have come and gone, but with sour taste in our mouth. Officially, seven persons reportedly lost their lives.

If the protest did not hold, those seven persons would still be alive. This was the rationale for my earlier advocacy for the protesters to articulate their positions and come up with a blueprint of their requests and demands which government could act on without raising a brow.

With the character and conduct of the protest, followed by destruction of properties and public infrastructure, the economy has been further injured.

Government would end up using the scarce resources to fix what has been destroyed, while making effort to also generate income for improved service delivery.

Protests, by their very nature, are disincentives and killers of the economy. The country stands to lose an estimated N400 billion daily, if the chains of production are shut down.

The small business owners and daily income owners also suffer attrition each time the public space is shut down, preventing them from carrying out their legitimate daily undertakings.

So, rather than take a precipitate action that would further impoverish the citizenry, a little bit of understanding would suffice to draw government’s attention to our economic challenges.

We cannot afford to kill an employer because we intend to secure the employee. We need to strike a robust balance between the employer and employee to sustain the trajectory of human development.

After what seemed like a three day outburst, the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, gave a comprehensive statement which catalogued the efforts of the Federal Gov

Citizens must take more than a passing interest in what happens across the states. They must put their governors to task…

ernment at confronting and curtailing the economic challenges under his administration.

He was factual and straight to the point. He was transparent enough to tell the citizens what the challenges have been, and reassured the nation that things are under control.

The speech by the President also offered inroad to a greater future once the policies and measures being put in place begin to yield the desired. The expectations are heady, and the interventions are also multi-faceted.

The crippling of the nation’s economy has been long in coming; a culture of laizefaire leadership orientation that failed to interrogate scenarios in the previous eight years really brought us down.

We saw too much wastages on ways and means, foreign exchange debts, too many unserviced loans, burgeoning debts and a clear economic brigandage. Following my personal interactions with President Tinubu during the campaigns, I have keen confidence in his ability and capacity to improvise, generate and provoke initiatives that would arrest the economic drift of the country.

So far, he has applied measured steps in tack – ling the challenges, but the overall benefits would not roll into the collective till, at once. The President has been engaging.

He has been consulting with critical stakeholders to have a buyin into his agenda. He has maintained an open door policy that guarantees collation of information from a wide array of Nigerians and opinion moulders.

What he needs presently, is stoicism from the populace to allow the policies germinate and materialise for the good of all. Each time we protest, we lose some steps in our march to economic prosperity.

The destruction and vandalisation of national assets and monuments, public utilities and infrastructure are a huge set back in the affairs of the nation. We must exhibit unflinching patriotism and obligations in our shared commitment to grow the country.

It is not a job for the president alone, it is a collective incumbency that requires all hands to be on deck to see us through the journey to prosperity and development. On a final note, the governors of the 36 states of the federation, must wake up to their share of responsibility for some observed failures across the states.

The Federal Government, after the subsidy removal, have increased allocations to states of the Federation.

Also, the Federal Government recently distributed palliatives and grants to the states to cushion the impact of the economic challenges across the board; albeit some governors decided to divert them.

The idea of governors thinking the problem of the economic downturn is caused entirely by the Federal Government is utterly wrong.

I hope that the prodigal state governors who have failed to translate the opportunities that exist in their states, into positive service delivery for the people acknowledge that this protest is against them also.

We have some state governors who hoard palliatives donated by the Federal Government, refusing to share them to their people, we have others who refused to apply item-specific grants from the Federal Government as directed.

Once there is a shared commitment across federal, state and local governments in tackling the challenges, the better it will be for a holistic interrogation of the challenges for optimal performance.

Citizens must take more than a passing interest in what happens across the states. They must put their governors to task, raise queries where necessary, and probe into their governance structures with a view to enriching accountability and probity.

The idea of thinking that the Federal Government should bear the brunt of the people’s angst is delusive. The state governors too must wake up, right now.