Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, former spokesperson of the Northern Elders Discussion board (NEF), has referred to as on President Bola Tinubu to desert plans for a second time period and pave the best way for youthful management.
Baba-Ahmed, who lately resigned as particular adviser on political affairs within the vice-president’s workplace, made the enchantment in an open letter to Tinubu on Wednesday, April 23.
“Step apart — not on your opponents, however for a brand new era of Nigerians who can carry the nation ahead with recent vitality and concepts,” he wrote.
“Our era has completed its time. It will be a masterstroke in the event you and your get together yielded the sphere to new voices and new management.
“That manner, you can catalyse a peaceable, historic transformation and encourage a brand new political tradition rooted in benefit, unity, and progress.”
He urged the president to contemplate the legacy he needs to go away behind. “You maintain what your opposition lacks: the facility to cut back the harshness of life for the typical Nigerian,” he mentioned.
Whereas acknowledging that Tinubu inherited an ailing financial system and a weary inhabitants, Baba-Ahmed faulted his “lack of ability” to transform the preliminary goodwill of his inauguration into “efficient management”.
He described the president’s Renewed Hope Agenda as “a set of marketing campaign guarantees, not a coherent governance plan”, and mentioned greater than half of the federal cupboard “has no enterprise managing an administration tasked with bettering safety, livelihoods, or public belief”.
Baba-Ahmed, who disclosed he by no means met Tinubu all through his 18-month tenure within the presidency, warned towards prioritising politics over efficiency.
“Two years is a very long time — you may nonetheless obtain a lot,” he mentioned. “However in the event you shift consideration now to electoral ambitions, you threat dropping each governance momentum and public goodwill.
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“When you win once more with out reforming your type and technique, it’s possible you’ll spend 4 extra years preserving failure. When you lose, your legacy might be worn out straight away.”
He warned that discontent is rising throughout the nation. “The north is drifting out of your management below the load of {economic} hardship, insecurity, and alienation,” Baba-Ahmed mentioned.
“The east stays politically disengaged, whereas the south-south is fragmented. The south-west has been lukewarm, and its privileged place could turn into a burden. The north-east is deeply wounded and might not be taken with no consideration.”
Baba-Ahmed described Tinubu’s management type as “disconnected and unique”.
“Your closed-door type of management, your obvious indifference to complaints of ethnic bias in appointments, and the notion that you simply regularly run the nation from overseas whereas attending to non-public issues have created the picture of an remoted chief heading an insular administration,” he added.
“Your interior and secondary circles don’t mirror the self-discipline or inspiration needed to remodel Nigeria.”
He additionally criticised the federal government’s lack of clear messaging. “You wanted a robust engagement technique — one able to constructing nationwide consensus or no less than neutralising hostility,” he mentioned.
“As an alternative, you’ve appointed a crowd of spokespersons who typically confuse fairly than make clear your insurance policies.”
Earlier this month, Baba-Ahmed mentioned the north would unveil its place on the 2027 presidency inside six months.
“We all know no person will turn into president with out the north,” he had said.
