NEF spokesman, Baba-Ahmed, cautions Tinubu over harsh economic policies

Spokesman for the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has frowned at the economic policies of President Bola Tinubu, especially the complete removal of petrol subsidy, which escalated inflation and brought hardship in the country.

He said the economic hardship forced residents of Kaduna and parts of the North to protest, urging the Federal Government to arrest the situation beyond the palliative measures it introduced.

Baba-Ahmed, in a statement, yesterday, noted: “I saw a video last week showing a group of women and children holding virtually blank placards shouting “Tinubu, yunwa!”. Yunwa is the word for hunger in Hausa language.

“There were also interviews with some of the women in the marching crowd, with most of them saying they had nothing to eat, no heads of families and income earners, and no means to earn money for food. The person, who shot the video, said he had run into the marching crowd in Rigasa, Kaduna City.”

According to NEF spokesman, the people in the video did not look like beggars. “We know what beggars look like in the North. Majority were women garbed in the Muslim hijab. If they were a random assemblage of aggrieved fraction of the community going through the motion of splashing dirt on Tinubu, it did not show on the video that could have been shot in a thousand places in Nigeria, especially northern towns and cities.”