The 2023 Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has queried President Tinubu's claim of meeting Nigeria's 2025 revenue target amid unpaid retiree pensions and gratuities calling it insensitive and troubling.
Obi expressed doubts about the President's compassion to the suffering of Nigerians whose livelihoods have suffered a lot of strain as a result of his administration's policies.
The former Anambra State Governor said this in a post on his verified X handle, on Thursday.
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Obi wrote: "Having met our revenue target for the year ahead of schedule, we should show sensitivity and compassion to the suffering masses by deploying resources to critical areas that will help to create jobs to alleviate the people's hardships.
"For instance, critical economic players and their associated institutions are undergoing a serious dearth of funds, and their effect is showing in areas they support, like SMEs. Some of them are even protesting as they cannot meet their banks' and staff needs.
"Why are retired public servants, including service men and women who have risked their lives for the nation, still protesting over unpaid gratuities and pensions?
"It is (not) shameful that those who built this nation with their sweat, those who defended it with their lives, and those who have fulfilled their contractual obligations are reduced to begging for what is rightfully theirs, even after the government boasts of excess revenue.
"Achieving revenue targets means nothing if it does not impact the lives of the people, if those who serve and build the nation are left with unpaid entitlements in their difficult years, and those who have genuinely fulfilled their contractual obligations, most of whom are SMES with one form of debt or the other are still unpaid.
"Our nation must not continue to throw its citizens into debt and despair.
It is time for our government to act responsibly and with integrity. A New Nigeria is POssible."
