A former National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council, John Ameh, reportedly described President Bola Tinubu’s performance in office over the past two years as disappointing.
According to The Punch, Ameh, who was said to have appeared as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Thursday evening, was reported to have criticised the President’s decision to remove the fuel subsidy. He maintained that the removal of the subsidy was the main cause of the hardship currently being experienced by many Nigerians.
The former Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council, John Ameh, also remarked that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) would be misguided to interpret the wave of political defections to the party as a sign of effective governance. He asserted that the prevailing sentiment among the Nigerian populace toward President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration was one of pain and disappointment.
Ameh reportedly stated that it would be “delusional” for the APC to consider itself as performing well, noting that the absence of public celebration during the administration’s two-year anniversary was telling. He emphasized that the true measure of a government’s success lies in the people’s reaction, invoking the Latin phrase “Vox populi, vox Dei,” meaning “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
He further argued that the movement of political elites into the APC should not be mistaken for popular support. According to him, even governors who were defecting carried only one vote each, and some of them had failed to deliver their states for their presidential candidates or themselves in past elections, such as in Delta State. Therefore, he cautioned against using such defections as a benchmark for the administration’s success.
“If you look at Akwa Ibom, he has been afraid to move because he knows that he’s going to be in danger. Because the people are not rejoicing in his movement. Because you know that the reaction of the people towards the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government is one of pain, is one of disappointment. It’s a fact that the president is not getting his policy right,” Ameh stated.
