Nigeria Is Not Working — Ex-APC Chairman, John Oyegun Laments

Former national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), John Oyegun has lamented over the non-working state of the country and unhappiness across the nation.

Though Oyegun admitted that Nigeria has been growing in the last 20 years in his speech at the 17th edition of the Daily Trust Dialogue, he however stated that there is hardly a single administration that has not left office unpopular and unheralded in all those years.

The APC Chieftain also pointed out that a question that is yet to be asked is “why our people are increasingly unhappy with their governors within those 20 years.”

Oyegun said: “I borrow from what the former governor of Borno State (Kashim Shettima) said. He passionately appealed that we must try to make Nigeria work. Why is Nigeria not working? At the risk of being misinterpreted, let me make the point that we have been growing in those 20 years, every year and with every administration.

“I dare to even say that there is hardly a single administration in those 20 years that has not left office unpopular and unheralded.

“We have never asked ourselves the question why are our people getting increasingly unhappy with their governors within those 20 years.

“Why are they getting poorer, why are they losing hope, those are the questions I think pose a threat to our democracy because today we are beginning to hear rumblings that we didn’t hear before.”

He also commented on Amotekun, the South-West security outfit which has ignited controversy in the last few days.

The former APC Chairman said, “Amotekun is just one of them which show a general feeling of enough is not being done in certain areas and this has been a growing syndrome in the last 20 years.

“What have we missed between government and the people? What should we be doing as government, as leaders that we are not doing? Why is it that our people are losing hope, losing faith in us, and hope in the nation?

“So, there is something fundamentally wrong I cannot give you the answer but it is something that another dialogue probably needs to address.”

“Democracy has to develop roots in our nation.”