Our leaders are exploitative, we can’t calm down – Okeke

As the 10-day #EndBadGovernance nationwide protest came to a close yesterday, Nigerian actress Daniella Okeke said that the leaders in the country are exploitative.

Thousands of Nigerians, many of them young people, began marching on the streets of major cities, including Lagos and Abuja, on August 1 to pressure the government to reverse “bad” economic policies.

President Bola Tinubu’s fuel subsidy policies, announced after his inauguration in May last year, have exacerbated the cost of living crisis. The removal of fuel subsidies and liberalization of foreign exchange have led to record-high inflation and food prices.

Okeke, in a post made on her social media handle, said Nigerians have always behaved themselves in the face of hardship, but the current situation has become unbearable.

Okeke stated that it was unacceptable to ask the masses to calm down when a few privileged people were living large.

“Right now, Nigerians are hungry. You can’t tell a hungry man to calm down.

With prices of food items rising as inflation jumped above 30 per cent, Okeke said the government needs to make food affordable and available.

“Our leaders are exploiting our collective patrimony. In Nigeria, we have enough to meet the needs of many but it’s been serviced by the greed of a few,” the actress said.

While agitation over hunger and hardship pushed many Nigerians to the streets with demand to reverse subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit and address the rising inflation and unemployment, President Bola Tinubu was forced to address the protesters calling for calm.

Tinubu, in a televised broadcast addressing the nation on Sunday, said that the country’s economy had been “anaemic” for decades, which has necessitated his painful decisions to remove fuel subsidies and abolish multiple foreign exchange systems.

He then explained that the removal of fuel subsidies and the abolishment of multiple foreign exchange systems, which had constituted a noose around the economic jugular, impeded the country’s economic development and progress.