Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda yielding results, Wike claims

Stop unleashing intolerable hardship, HURIWA tells President

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has claimed that President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda is entrenching good governance among the people.

But following Tinubu’s call for the cessation of hostilities between Israeli and Hamas fighters, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) urged the President to declare an immediate ceasefire on the intolerable hardship visited on Nigerians.

Making the claim in Abuja, yesterday, when he inspected the construction of the five-kilometre Sabur/Dei Dei Road, awarded last February, Wike said Tinubu had promised to satisfy the people’s needs. He added that the promises were being fulfilled and the hopes of Nigerians were being renewed.

He said, “Good governance is inclusive of the provision of basic infrastructure, being transparent and accountable, providing security and quality health and education to the people. All the things that we have been doing in FCT are part of good governance.”

The minister asserted that the people were happy with what the Tinubu-led administration was doing in FCT to transform their lives.
HURIWA reminded Tinubu that millions of Nigerian children suffer violence, hunger, deprivation, poverty and sudden deaths like the Palestinians in Gaza.

It attributed the heightened state of poverty and deprivation suffered by millions of Nigerians to the government’s devaluation of the naira and the constant hike in the pump price of petrol.

The National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, stated that the biting economic adversities due to the naira devaluation and the constant hike in the costs of living turned millions of Nigerian households into destitute just like the population in the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The human rights group also said if the security forces were not able to combat the new terrorist group in Sokoto and Kebbi, then many more Nigerian families would face uncertain future even as children would bear the devastating impact of the activities of the new terrorist group, Lukarawas.

He said: “Does President Tinubu know that the proportion of displaced people living in camps is 45 per cent in the North East, 12 per cent in the North West, and 38 per cent in Benue State? Displacement is primarily due to protracted armed conflict in its 15th year in the North East and armed violence in the North West. Armed conflict in North East Nigeria continues to adversely affect the lives and prospects of 7.7 million people, 60 per cent of them children.”

“We are calling on the President to ceasefire on the implementation of harsh economic policies. Nominal earnings have not kept up with inflation, pushing another 10 million Nigerians into poverty in 2023. Based on World Bank projections, about 40.7 per cent of Nigerians are estimated to live below the international poverty line by the end of 2024.”