Niyi Olasinde
Residents of Osun State have described Monday’s presidential broadcast on the state of the nation’s economy as not enough to allievate the hardship faced by the people due to the removal of fuel subsidy.
They said it is imperative for the government to fast-track the implementation of its palliatives to immediately cushion the effects of the current economic situation.
While exchanging views with OSUN DEFENDER, residents of the state said the broadcast will remain ‘business as usual,’ if the steps announced by President Bola Tinubu is not rightly implemented.
The President, had in response of waves of reactions to situations of events on the land, following the fuel subsidy removal he announced in his May 29 inaugural speech, spoke to citizens.
Rolling out measures aimed at cushioning the harsh realities unfolded by the subsidy removal, Tinubu declared that measures like provision of mass transit buses, loans availability to MSMES, with at most 9 per cent interest rate per annum, students’ loans scheme for tertiary education, releasing metric tonnes of grains from the national grains reserve and provision of land and other enabling incentives to practising farmers, among others.
He revealed how the barely two-month subsidy removal had earned the nation an additional earning of about N1 trillion.
To Alhaji Saliu Odunsi, a resident of Ilesa, the proposed mass transit buses are mere mirages, which are bound to disappear the same way as similar government initiatives earlier witnessed.
Alhaji Odunsi stated that: “It would be remembered that public mass transit initiatives had been initiatives of governments in all tiers in the past. Where are the buses today? What has become of the various transport companies and mass transit corporations?”
A student of the Osun State Polytechnic Iree, Mr. Segun Ajjbade, faulted the students’ loan scheme as a characteristic programme intended to favour the privileged class alone, going by its terms and conditions.
Ajibade observed that a student from a poor background who embraces the scheme would subject his family and himself to perpetual debts from which they may never recover.
He further viewed it as arrangement that is outright beyond the reach of the masses.
A foodstuffs seller in Ikirun, Mrs Taibat Adeyemo told OSUN DEFENDER that the paliatives should be channeled to Nigerians through trustworthy and responsible officials, so as to get to the downtrodden it was intended for.
Mrs Adeyemo who welcomed the idea on massive food production held that if the programmes and plans as contained in the broadcast are well implemented, Nigerians will soon renew their hope in the present administration.
Other respondents who spoke to OSUN DEFENDER noted that the only way for the present administration to redeem itself in the face of Nigerians is to take urgent steps to reducing to the barest minimum, the ongoing hardship in the country.
