- Momodu said most of those around Tinubu cannot tell him the truth about the situation of the country because their lives depend on him.
- Last Thursday, in an open letter to Tinubu, Momodu said Nigeria is in “big trouble,” noting that the country’s economy has “virtually collapsed”.
Dele Momodu, a prominent PDP leader, believes that the attempt to apply the same economic approaches that succeeded in Lagos to the federal government in Abuja has led to the country’s current economic challenges.
He shared this insight during an interview with Channels Television on Monday.
Momodu’s comments come on the heels of economic hardship facing Nigerians and appear to be directed at President Bola Tinubu, who was also a former governor of Lagos.
On July 18, the PDP chieftain had in an open letter to Tinubu said Nigeria is in “big trouble,” noting that the country’s economy has “virtually collapsed”.
Momodu had asked Tinubu to stop the “reckless propensity for wasting scarce resources,” adding that funds should be used for “serious development”.
Speaking on Monday, he criticized Tinubu’s cabinet, adding that he would struggle to name ten ministers and their qualifications or accomplishments prior to their appointment.
“I am someone who believes in a star studied cabinet. If you ask me today, President Ibrahim Babangida minus the the June 12 annulment, had one of the best cabinets in Nigeria and he tried his best. Obasanjo Baba also tried his best to assemble the best,” Momodu said.
“Today, and God is my witness, if you ask me to name ten ministers in Tinubu’s cabinet and to tell you what they did or did not do before they were appointed, I will struggle.
“That is the truth and ask an average person and I don’t consider myself average not to. Look, what we have today is that someone transferred the Lagos template to Abuja and that’s why we are failing. Nigeria parades some of the greatest human being in planet earth.
“I have traveled a bit. There is no where up to Australia that I did not meet Nigerians doing great things. Where are those people? In today’s Nigeria, it’s either you are the son of, the daughter of, Nigeria cannot continue to operate on the basis of compensation. I must compensate my friend.
“I must compensate my former schoolmate. No, Nigeria right now is playing World Cup and you are picking weak players. No, we can’t do that and that’s why I wrote that letter. A lot of the people around there now, their lives totally depend on Tinubu. They cannot tell him the truth. I know what a lot of them say behind when they see us.
“Ah, you know, we can’t talk. Ah, if we talk, oh, that is the truth and I’m one of the people he knows. Right from when we were in exile, when he was governor for eight years, I would tell him.
I’m a letter writer anyway. I write letters all the time. I wrote to President Obasanjo, I wrote to Buhari, I wrote all of them, Jonathan, and that is why I’m also writing to a man that I know we’ve come way back. If he’s watching, he knows I always tell him.”