- Decries alarming poverty rate
- Says someone called me 30 times to beg for N3000
In a veiled delivery of below par performance score for President Bola Tinubu-led administration and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), former Minister of Communication, Barrister Adebayo Shittu has decried the poverty rate in the country as critically paralysing.
This is as he also lamented that poverty is being weaponized to the extent when politicians go soliciting votes, people are more interested in the immediate gains they can get rather than what those seeking offices are capable of delivering in terms of good governance.
Barrister Shittu described7 the poverty level as alarming, alluding that many Nigerians have unfortunately become beggars due to the harsh economic realities.
Barrister Shittu, who painted the pathetic picture when he featured on an AIT programme, Focus Nigeria, lamented that Nigeria’s economic condition has turned citizens into beggars with the future even appearing bleak going forward.
According to the former Minister, who resides in Ibadan, Oyo State, a Nigerian recently called him from Bauchi State to beg for N1,000 to feed himself, while another person, a woman called him about 30 times just to beg for N3,000.
Hear him; “Yesterday, before I left Ibadan, somebody phoned me from Bauchi and begged me for N1,000. He said he had not eaten for two days.
“Again, about a week ago, somebody also called me, a woman who wanted N3,000. At the time she wanted that money, unbelievably, I myself didn’t have that money, and the woman called me 30 times in one day.”
Praying that the situation does not degenerate to where many Nigerians would be scavenging in garbage dumps to feed themselves and their families, Shittu fumed that poverty had been weaponized in the country by those in power and their cohorts.
He further captured the ugly experience most citizens are going by admitting weaponised poverty has made it near impossible for the electorate to demand good governance as they only go after the crumbs offered by politicians in the name of so-called palliatives
For him, given the high level of poverty, the people are more interested in money and mere pittance in exchange for their votes, rather than what the office seekers are capable of doing for them and the overall good of Nigeria.
Clearly expressing anger at the situation of things in the country, the former Minister said; “It’s not my business to douse the poverty of such people calling me because when you go to such people to ask for their votes or support, they don’t care what you’re capable of doing.
“What they are interested in is what they can get out of you today.”
On his time as a members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) under the the President Muhammadu Buhari administration from 2015 to 2019, Shittu said contrary to Nigerians’ beliefs about political appointees, he currently doesn’t have money because he didn’t steal while in office.
Also hinting that post-political appointment life can be quite challenging for politicians who didn’t steal while in office, the former Minister claims his 10 graduate children are basically responsible for his upkeep through the monthly allowance coming from them.
