Tinubu deserves Nigerians’ support, says ex-NPN spokesman Ogundokun

Aformer National Publicity Secretary of defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Chief Abiola Ogundokun, has urged Nigerians to support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to get the nation out of its challenges.

He said this is the right thing to do in the current circumstance, rather than asking him to quit office.

In a statement, the former party spokesman said the President deserves to be praised for steadying the ship of state, adding that the current economic hardship is not peculiar to the country but a global issue.

He said President Tinubu inherited a badly managed economy, stressing that some of the challenges currently shaking the country had been there for many years.

Ogundokun described the current wave of protests across the country as “sinister intentions of unpatriotic elements who are bent on destabilising the nation for their personal gains”.

“We must be educated about the fact that if we allow fifth columnists to hide under the right to protest and they succeed in destabilising the country, the current situation will rather get worse,” he said.

The former NPN spokesman said the time has come for elder statesmen and women to offer credible and patriotic solutions and advice on how the country can progress.

Ogundokun condemned the calls for the President’s resignation, saying: “I personally want to use this medium to appeal to elder statesmen, like my friend and brother, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo; my colleague and friend, Chief Edwin Clark; my brothers, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, to put Nigeria first in these critical times and shun the temptation to elevate personal disagreements at par with national interest.

“There is an economic slowdown contagion across the globe, which calls for concerted efforts by all to salvage the situation for the benefit of Nigerians and Nigeria.

“This is not the time to politicise governance, as is being promoted by unpatriotic elements masquerading as rights advocates. I appeal to Nigerians to be more aware of these and other issues, especially the need to afford the President more time to fix some of the endemic challenges facing Nigeria,” the statement said.

“Let us move forward and put Nigeria first and bury the hatchet of hatred, failure and animosity towards one another and come together to assist the current administration with solutions and recommendations to achieve all that it has outlined in the Renewed Hope Agenda because condemnation is not the solution,” the statement said.