The immediate-past National Vice Chairman, Northwest, of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Salihu Lukman has said that President Bola Tinubu’s ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ was fast turning into ‘renewed anger’.
Lukman, who was reacting to recent protests in Minna and Kano over the rising cost of living, described the development as a wake up call to the Federal government.
He lambasted the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, for attempting to turn logic on its head by blaming the opposition for sponsoring the protests, even within the party’s strongholds.
The ex-APC Vice Chair said instead of blaming some imaginary opposition parties, the APC leadership and government should simply take responsibility.
“If the truth must be told, there is hunger in the land! As a committed member of APC, it is very depressing that this is happening under the leadership of our party.
“Even more depressing was the statement issued by Mr. Felix Morka, our National Publicity Secretary, alleging that opposition parties are behind the protests.
“For Mr. Morka to issue such a very dishonest statement points to only one thing – that the leadership of our party has completely lost it and at this rate their political utility value is zero. This clearly suggests that even the old pretenses about being progressive have been thrown to the dogs,” he added.
According to him, the protests, coming less than a year into the President Bola Tinubu administration, call for urgent response by the government.
He said that such a response must as a matter of necessity address existing realities whereby prices of goods and services, especially food items, are astronomically going up, almost on hourly basis.
