(Kalu Aja. Photo by Kalu Aja)
Financial advisor and educator Kalu Aja has taken aim at President Bola Tinubu over remarks in which the president appeared to link Nigeria’s growing insecurity crisis to those who previously benefited from the fuel subsidy and foreign exchange systems.
Tinubu, speaking through former governor Olusegun Osoba at the Lagos launch of the book, The NADECO Story, on Wednesday, alleged that individuals who profited from the corruption that characterised those regimes were responsible for the escalating wave of insecurity across the country.
Responding on social media on Thursday, Aja accused the president of deflecting blame rather than confronting the actual root causes of the problem.
He challenged the logic behind connecting insecurity to fuel subsidies or foreign exchange policies, pointing to the recent spate of violent attacks in parts of northern Nigeria as evidence that the drivers of insecurity are far more complex.
Aja cautioned that without a clear and accurate understanding of what is truly fuelling the crisis, any attempt to tackle it would fall short and potentially make matters worse.
In his words, he questioned whether militant groups carrying out deadly attacks on farming communities were motivated by economic policies, suggesting the link the president drew was fundamentally flawed.
He expressed serious concern that if those in power cannot correctly identify the problem, there is little hope of finding an effective solution.