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Nigerians are being urged to keep the faith with President Bola Tinubu, despite the daunting challenges facing the nation, by Dr. Abdul-Jhalil Tafawa Balewa, a veteran politician and one-time presidential hopeful. With the economy in dire straits, Dr. Balewa acknowledges the president’s difficult inheritance but remains optimistic about his ability to turn things around.
The plea for patience came during a chat with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Sunday, where Dr. Abdul-Jhalil Tafawa Balewa shared his candid thoughts on the state of the nation.
The former presidential aspirant stressed that a nation in dire straits, hovering close to zero, faces a steep uphill climb to regain stability and momentum, making the rescue mission all the more difficult.
Dr. Tafawa Balewa emphasized that while President Tinubu has taken steps in the right direction, a more ambitious and sustained drive is needed to reposition Nigeria for success and make significant inroads into addressing its many pressing challenges.
He recommended that the president take a scalpel to the country’s bloated governance structure, slashing wasteful expenditures to liberate funds for critical development initiatives that can drive Nigeria’s resurgence.
The politician also urged Tinubu to strengthen his cabinet with technocrats that could help actualise his development agenda for Nigeria.
“He (President) needs to be able to move with the times and put people that have moved out or have learned new technologies to be able to manage the different ministries.
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“I think we have too many ministries, about 48, that need to be slimmed down because a lot of money is being used to run these ministries.
“We just need to be able to slim down the number of ministers,” he added.
Tafawa-Balewa urged the president to work harder on security to end kidnappings ,insurgency and other threats
“We have to improve our security so that our farmers can go to the farms. We are going to have a burst of food production.
“Without security, we cannot improve our food production right now. We also have technology for preservation and distribution of food. We have written so many times about using the gamma radiation facility to be able to improve our food preservation and distribution but nobody wants to listen.
“We have one of the largest gamma radiation facilities in the world and definitely the largest in Africa. We are not using it,” Tafawa-Balewa,a Consultant Nuclear Chemist ,specialising in food preservation, said.
