Makinde Says Labour Warning Strike Is Referendum Against Tinubu

The Makinde/Daura Presidential Campaign Organisation (MDPCO) has said the three-day warning strike by Nigerian workers is a referendum against the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The campaign said the strike has brought into sharp focus the catastrophic consequences of President Tinubu’s economic policies.

In a statement on Sunday by its Director of Strategic Communications, Richard Ihediwa, the MDPCO asserted that a Makinde/Daura Presidency with its blueprint for economic recovery will lead the nation out of the misrule of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration.

According to the organisation, the raging economic crisis under President Tinubu which gave rise to the organised Labour’s Charter of Demands highlights the ills of the anti-people policies of the Tinubu-led government and the harsh realities they have brought to everyday life.

“The APC government that lit the ‘fire’ now consuming the entire nation has become a firefighter without a hose as President Tinubu obviously has no answers to the problems brought to our nation by his administration,” the MDPCO said.

It described the warning strike as a direct referendum on a failed government.

“The warning strike is a direct referendum on a failed government; a stark measure of how ill-conceived and ill-implemented economic policies have triggered widespread poverty in Nigeria,” the statement said.

The campaign said the development raises a fundamental moral and political question about President Tinubu’s quest for a second term.

“We ask, how can a government that failed to shield its citizens from the consequences of its policies, credibly ask the same citizens to renew its mandate?” it queried.

The MDPCO argued that a government where capital-budget implementation has been abysmally delayed and repeatedly rolled over for three consecutive years, amidst ceaseless borrowing, diminishing transparency and accountability, amidst unfulfilled promises and elusive gains of subsidy removal, should not expect votes from Nigerians.

“We know that leaders living large at the expense of the people; desensitized to the suffocating cost of living and incapable of measuring productivity cannot protect Nigerians,” it said.

The organisation said the celebration by the APC government of supposed gains of its economic reforms, when those gains remain invisible in the daily lives of average Nigerians, is self-delusional.

“When wages lose value, the cost of living keeps rising and workers barely survive, government statistics and celebratory claims become meaningless,” it stated.

According to the MDPCO, what Nigerians need are people-based economic reforms with transparent social safety nets; reforms that protect livelihoods and ensure that Nigeria does not disappear under the burden of economic reforms.

“By every reasonable measure of good governance, President Tinubu has failed a basic test. Nigerians cannot afford to promote failure. They deserve a government that has the capacity and integrity to deliver results,” the campaign said.

It said the Makinde/Daura Presidency with its RESET Nigeria Agenda offers a clear alternative with well thought-out, data-driven and people-friendly policies anchored on inclusiveness, intensive national production, adequate security, transparency and accountability in governance.

“This is why Nigerians from all walks of life and even across party lines are queuing behind the Presidential Candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Engr. Seyi Makinde in their collective quest to use the 2027 Presidential election to RESET Nigeria to a nation that truly works for all,” Ihediwa added.