- Ngelale praised the recent Supreme Court ruling granting financial independence to local governments, describing it as a “practical form of restructuring”.
- He said that its impact on citizens’ lives will only become apparent with time.
Ajuri Ngelale, the presidential spokesperson, has said no one has the authority to deny Nigerians from embarking on a peaceful protest.
Speaking when he appeared on ‘Politics on Sunday’, a programme on Television Continental (TVC) anchored by Femi Akande, Ngelale said President Bola Tinubu’s administration is commited towards serving Nigerians, not “dominating”
Within Nigeria reports that the proposed youth-led nationwide protest is slated to commence on August 1.
“Let me put it on record that we have heard certain utterances from some members of even our own administration and indeed from some subnational entities in the country suggesting that Nigerians do not have the right to protest and that they would be stopped from protesting,” Ngelale said.
” I want to be very clear this evening in front of the nation in saying that there is nobody within our administration that has the standing, the command, or the gravitas to tell any Nigerian citizen that they cannot peacefully protest in any part of this country. We are not in office to dominate our people. We are in office to serve our people and this is the position of the president. His Excellency President Bola Tinubu has been very clear that the notion of peaceful protest is a central component of an effective functioning democracy.”
The presidential spokesperson said anyone who tries to dominate rather than serve will face opposition from the president, who defends Nigerians’ right to peaceful protest.
”Anyone who disagrees with the notion from inside of government, the notion that we are here to serve our people, that we’re not here to dominate them, that Nigerians do have the right to peacefully protest, are lining up themselves against a commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who will defend the right of Nigerians to peacefully protest in any part of this country and we want to be very unequivocal about that,” he said.
Speaking on the country’s economic struggles, Ngelale said the president is committed to reviving Nigeria’s economy, despite the challenges inherited from previous administrations.
He urged citizens to be patient, as the administration implements a comprehensive plan to improve living standards, acknowledging that meaningful progress takes time.
The presidential spokesperson cited various government efforts, including a new minimum wage, low-interest loans for MSMEs, infrastructure upgrades, and social programs, and added that some may take time to show tangible results.
“You have over 300 roadways across all states of the Federation being reconstructed and that is not including the superhighway from Lagos to Calabar that is under construction, the Badagry to Sokoto highway and many many others not to talk of 1 billion dollars being right now expended on seaport reconstruction across the eastern and western seaports,” he said.
“There are several things that are going on now that create direct employment and set us up for a prosperous future where our infrastructure actually supports the foreign direct investment drive that this President is aggressively pursuing.
“But it is also incumbent upon our administration, not just at the federal level, but obviously incumbent on the state and local levels, to ensure that whatever policies are being implemented to create fiscal space for households, that these things are actually done, that we don’t have any kind of administrative incompetence, that we don’t have unnecessary bureaucratic delays.”
Ngelale said several social programs are already underway, adding that important progress is being made through the quiet, diligent efforts of officials like Yemi Cardoso, the Central Bank governor, who is working to resolve a significant foreign exchange backlog.
“For example of the CBN Governor, as he’s doing his paperwork which leads to the full payoff of $7bn worth of foreign exchange backlog. It has a massive impact on investor confidence, it has massive impact on the medium term kind of monetary space in the country, but that’s not something that people are necessarily going to be dancing and celebrating about. So there’s a lot going on,” the president spokesperson said.
Ngelale praised the recent Supreme Court ruling granting financial independence to local governments, describing it as a “practical form of restructuring”.
He said that its impact on citizens’ lives will only become apparent with time.