President Bola Tinubu should resist the temptation to flood his administration with political associates and identify competent Nigerians, irrespective of party, religious and tribal affiliations, to form a government that can deliver urgently needed services to Nigerians, former presidential candidate of African Democratic Congress, ADC, Dumebi Kachikwu, has said.
Kachikwu, who gave the advice in his Democracy Day message in Abuja yesterday,, said it was only by avoiding political and other sentimental temptations that President Tinubu's government could make meaning to Nigerians.
He said Tinubu must rise to the occasion by taking concrete steps to reduce the hardship Nigerians had been going through over the years and write his name on the right side of history.
Kachikwu said: "He must urgently set up a government with competent people and avoid the temptation of flooding the new administration with political associates.
"It is with a renewed sense of hope and optimism that many Nigerians received the Democracy Day broadcast from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Our nation is pregnant with hope, and we hope this won't be another still birth.
"For too long the Nigerian people have endured. We have kept faith when promises made by successive governments didn't materialise. We have been asked to be patient until we no longer know what it means to be patient.
"Today our president has once again asked us to be patient as cost of living rises astronomically occasioned by the removal of petroleum subsidy. On a day when we should celebrate the essence of democracy, we don't have much to celebrate."
"Our new president is already taking baby steps unlike President Buhari who crawled throughout his 8 years in office. Nigerians are all in agreement that we want a president who sees his time in office as a 100-metre sprint.
"We all yearn for the hope promised us by the man M.K.O Abiola three decades ago. His message resonated with most Nigerians and as such, Nigerians from all walks of life trooped out to vote for him in an election adjudged to be free and fair.
"Desperate men didn't allow him to take the oath of office but in our hearts and minds, he remains the president we know.
"Thirty years later his fight for a better Nigeria remains unfinished. It is an unending fight for all true patriots and lovers of democracy. It is a fight not just for yesterday but for today and our tomorrow.
"It is a fight our president has promised to sustain, and we take him at his words because never has Nigeria needed a people's champion like we do today."He should now go beyond campaign rhetoric and put in place the processes and plans required to rebuild our nation.
"While we understand the difficulties before him in bringing our nation back from the brink, he must also understand he asked for this job and as such he must deliver all he has promised to the Nigerian people.
"A nation of meritocracy, free of mediocrity. A nation of brotherhood united in the fight against tribalism, nepotism, discrimination and all forms of extremism.
"Those of us in other parties who lost the race must now act honourably by extending a hand of fellowship towards the new administration. This does not in any way undermine those who have sought legal redress. It only shows that Nigeria comes first.
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"We must begin to redefine the word opposition in the context of our democracy. As we oppose, we must also propose. As we disagree, we must also agree. Service to fatherland is our calling. The Nigerian people remain our common priority.
"The Nigerian people will stand behind any president who is truly committed to his oath of office. We will endure as long as know we are all in this together.
"Our president made the mistake of not announcing any structured palliative measures to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal.
"Promises are not good enough for an overburdened people. He also got it wrong when he said illegal orders used to truncate or abridge democracy will no longer be tolerated. The judiciary remains an equal arm of government and must be treated as such."
