A former Kwara State governorship aspirant, Engineer Pastor Sunday Adebayo Babalola, has urged Nigerians not to be despondent because of the current challenges in the country.
He emphatically said that things will be better in the country and urged the citizens and other residents not to despair, in view of the current hunger, insecurity, poverty, and unemployment.
In an interview with journalists, on Wednesday, he stated that the current administration of President Bola Tinubu should not be held responsible for the national challenges, adding that the problems had been existing with the previous administrations and regimes.
Babalola said: “My rating of Nigeria would be: we have not done well. But it is not a problem of the current sitting government. We know it is easy to demolish, but to build is always very hard. Let us keep seeing what they are doing. I have made public my stand concerning certain things, like petroleum subsidy. I knew it would bring hardship. But it is the best thing. Today, the state governments have more money, which some of them are not using well but that’s not the problem of the federal government.
“I knew that exchange rate harmonization would bring some hardship. In both cases, that I mentioned, it is only the businessmen that were smiling to the banks. People were not enjoying them. Yes, these are not as expensive, but people are not enjoying it. So, I knew they would bring hardship in those areas, but I can assure you, those policies will eventually make the country better. And there are many other policies that the federal government has put their hands to do, which in my candid opinion, will eventually benefit the people, even though they will be suffering in the current time. It’s not a sweet song, but it’s just like, you are eating the whole food you have at about 12 noon, and in the evening, you have nothing to eat, all because you are hungry. Then you will sleep in an empty stomach and wake up the following morning with nothing to eat. That is what we were doing.
“But what we are doing now is to preserve some, and say, okay, this afternoon, even though I am not satisfied, I will live a little for this evening, and a little for tomorrow morning, so that I will have breakfast, no matter how small, so that I can go out and walk the mall. I think that is better than the situation where we just want to lose all our ten fingers, put our ten fingers in the mouth, and eat and eat and eat. So, I think we are moving in the right direction economically. It’s hard because of the policies, but it will still eventually benefit the people.”
He added: “I said the current economic hardship is not solely to be heaped on the current administration of Tinubu because the things have been broken down since 1999, and you can see it breaking down. Is it Tinubu that spoiled Nigeria Airways? Nigeria Airways has been destroyed before even 1999. So, is it Tinubu that stopped the depots from working? Depots that were created by the military. They were all broken before that time. It will take time to repair those pipelines.
“Is it Tinubu that spoiled the power? Power has broken down because people were not doing what they needed to do. It will take time to revamp the sector. It is very easy to demolish a house, in one day, you can demolish a very tall building. But to build or rebuild that house will definitely take some time. It won’t be one day, no matter how fast you are.
“You have to sow a seed in order to be able to reap. So, it’s a sacrifice we are all making. Things will get better. The government also tackled this insecurity. I can assure you, if the government wants to do it, they can do it. But maybe there could be some people who are benefiting from this insecurity. And once we tackle insecurity, we tackle power, we address some of other challenges, things will work out alright.”