Mr. President, with respect, the air is getting thin.
Fuel at ₦1,000 plus. Electricity tariff doubled. Food inflation at 40%. SSCE now ₦50,000. School fees up. Transport up. Drugs up.
You said “subsidy is gone” and that it was for the good of the nation. We believed. We tightened our belts. But sir, the belt is now cutting into bone.
This is not reform. This is suffocation.
The poor man in Abuja now treks because ₦1,000 cannot take him to work and back. The mother in Iguobazuwa now cooks once a day. The trader in Onitsha now closes shop at 6pm because diesel has finished her. The student in Benin now defers admission because ₦50,000 for WAEC is a ransom.
Sir, an economy cannot be revived by squeezing those who have nothing left to squeeze.
“You do not cure a sick man by taking his last blood.”
We understand tough decisions. But tough decisions must have a human face. Where are the palliatives that reached the woman selling akara? Where is the mass transit that makes fuel irrelevant? Where is the local refinery that makes this pain make sense?
Policy without compassion becomes punishment.
Statistics without stomachs become insults.
Let the poor breathe.
Subsidize transport. Freeze school fees. Cap food prices. Cut the cost of governance first before you cut the life out of the people.
A government that cannot let its people breathe will soon find that nobody is left to clap when the economy recovers.
Because a suffocated people cannot build a nation. They can only survive it.
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